


Try Again Later

by Tsuukai



Series: Leaves [3]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Furuhashi Koujirou/Hanamiya Makoto - Freeform, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, midokaga
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 29,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2607350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsuukai/pseuds/Tsuukai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The number you have called is currently either switched off or out of the service area. Please try again later.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He glanced at the phone with a raised eyebrow, as though the device should start making excuses if it did not want to see the same demise as its predecessor.</p><p>"...This better not be what I think it means, you stupid piece of shit."</p><p>[Continuation of 'If at First You Don't Succeed'.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How Do You Take

 

 

**They say the third time’s a charm, but…exactly who is the lucky one in this?**

**(** Eh…An AU where Kagami never came back for Middle School, but rather (unnecessarily) for University. **)**

* * *

 

“How do you take your coffee?”

Taiga looked up, confused, staring at deep blue eyes of a person he has never seen before.

“Personally, I can’t take it bitter. Something sweet with all that whip cream is good. How about you?”

Taiga raised an eyebrow. This six foot something, lumbering dark skinned male, balancing a well-cared for green and black basketball against a jutting hip, smiled benevolently, teeth and all. “You don’t like it bitter?”

"Nu-uh." the smile at the edges was getting a little strained, shifting closer together in the centre.

"I like it bitter. Sweet’s not bad, though."

The conversation was a little weird, but the resulting smile on the other was beatific.

Taiga remembers the smile very well.

* * *

 

“How do you like your ramen noodles?”

If he was not thoroughly engrossed in his slurping, Taiga would have choked enough that the Heimlich manoeuvre would have been lost on him. Thankfully, he has mastered the art of shovelling food in his mouth, breathing and talking all in the same breath.

“Personally, I like them soggy, and can’t touch the soup when they first put it down, ya know? How about—” the male, Aomine Daiki as Taiga has come to know, halted as he took in the half-finished meal. “…You’ve…already finished everything?”

Taiga slurped the rest in what seemed like one too large a mouthful. “I’m still hungry,” he confessed, gazing at the menu board across from where he sat. The mere fact that Aomine was also at the same ramen bar was a little off-putting, but not that suspicious; they were after all at the same campus, and the ramen bar was on said campus as well, it just made their second meeting a coincidence.

"So…you like ramen?"

Taiga considered the question—if he did not like it, would he have still eaten it?—and glanced over at the eager-puppy looking Aomine. “Sure, what’s not to like?”

"Me too!" Aomine sidled beside him, ignoring the age old rule of leaving a seat between them empty, elbows on the bar surface. The grin on his lips felt wider than the first time he had seen it.

"I guess as long as it has meat, I don’t care," Taiga felt like offering.

This time, however, the sweet curve of lips turned a little wilder, as though imagining a hungry beast, Taiga thought he finally caught Aomine as anything but the too-tall-to-really-be-a-little bunny in an (aptly) big wolf’s clothing, for the beast he really was. Taiga blinked a couple of times wondering if his estimation was a little off and if he was finally confused by these Japanese people.

"I know; fried chicken is the best!"

"Hmm?" Leaning on his open palm, Taiga watches as Aomine engages on a verbal quest where he traverses the best places to get said best meat. He will never agree openly, but Taiga did mentally jot down the names and found himself checking a few of the places in the coming weeks.

Thankfully, Aomine was not happening across those places.

* * *

 

"Aren’t these burgers to die for?!"

Taiga, at this point, should not be surprised to find Aomine inviting himself to his table, easily flumping onto the empty seat across from him. He would have sprouted words like  _"People will think we are friends, move"_  but he has just started on his mountain of burgers and he has been thinking of cheeseburgers since his second morning class. By the end of the fourth class (he had to take Calculus this semester if he was to take any of his advanced biology papers next semester), his stomach was doing the note-taking and that was not as fun as eating what he was doodling.

"Yea, was craving it from morning," he agreed through munches.

Aomine grinned cheekily. “What else are you craving now?” It seemed that he was unfazed by the amount Taiga was putting away, especially since the Ramen bar incident—Aomine’s eyes never left his gut.

Taiga shrugged in response. “I wanted cheeseburgers and now I’ve got them. I’m not so greedy to want more than I can eat.”

The suspicious look Aomine tried hiding said otherwise, and Taiga was just waiting to snap at any of his comebacks. Instead, Aomine merely chuckled and pointed at the slowly dwindling pile. On a reflex, Taiga’s free arm curved around his tray.

Aomine’s eyes twinkled. “I like their teriyaki better, has more flavour.”

Shrugging again—Taiga was not changing flavours because of some dude that kept meeting him coincidentally in every joint he had the opportunity to be eating in—he looked out of the window, watching random seeming people stream endlessly by. The reflexion of Aomine staring at him wordlessly, arm returning back to his side of the table, jaw firm, made Taiga turn back.

"They say…once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. Third time is enemy action." Aomine blinked blue eyes at him, wider than usual. "What exactly do you want from me?" Taiga was sure he was glaring enough to send anyone else with a soft spine scampering home, pants wet.

The bustle of the fast food joint blanketed the shock of Aomine’s uneasy gasp. As though mustering courage (for what, Taiga does not know), he starts to ramble. “I’ve seen you around the campus, ya know. Heard you were in America all this while, playing in their U-19 until last year. Your team won the FIBA and all that. So I was interested enough to check you out.”

Suddenly, it was all making sense. Taiga was being appraised by a (probably good) basketball player who had heard about his transfer, and was also (probably) wanting to have a one-on-one with. Grinning, pulse increasing with excitement, Taiga leaned over his now empty tray. Aomine, matching the enthusiasm, meets him the rest of the way.

"And?" Taiga goads.

Aomine grins, all teeth again. It is the second grin that Taiga remembers of the man.

"I wanted to know…how do you take your lover?"

It took a few seconds for the question to register in Taiga’s food-satiated mind, and then the “Wha-?” of the situation to hit him.

"I don’t know what-"

Aomine leaned even further, and before Taiga could get back, stole a soft, close-mouthed kiss. “Hehe,” the grinning male had the gall to enunciate, “I asked, how do you take your lover, Kagami Taiga?”

The impression of the third grin was probably the start of all his stolen moments, courtesy of one Aomine Daiki, preferred love-choice of Kagami Taiga.

 

 

* * *

**Author's End Notes:** I flaked on the ending. Forgive me.

(Oh right,  **Disclaimer:**  Ian Fleming — Goldfinger (1959) — Auric Goldfinger: Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” Miami, Sandwich and now Geneva. I propose to wring the truth out of you.)

 

 


	2. Classified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **“Say I agree…” Daiki’s grin turned victorious, “What will we do with the other four minutes?”**

**Warning(s)** : Insinuation of doing the deed. XD  **Disclaimer at the end.**

* * *

 

Taiga dusted his once prim shirt of superficial dirt, tugging on the sleeves with an air of forced calmness that even Daiki grinned lazily at the motions.

“I can pass off highly classified information provided you get back in bed with me for 5 minutes,” the sinful murmur of his voice—God, how Taiga loved when Daiki’s already sultry voice went even lower, making his body vibrate and his toes curl into themselves, and his—when the words caught up to him. Daiki was playfully using two fingers to “walk” across the space he just vacated, pulling at the sheets to invite Taiga back in.

Unconvinced of this ‘highly classified information’, he muttered, despondent, “Five minutes? That’s clearly not going to be about me.”

“Oh, but that’s how good this information is going to be…” Daiki leaned up, the eagerness to get Taiga back into the bed all the more apparent, and while any other time Taiga would have chucked his crumpled shirt miles away and galloped back into the warm, comforting embrace of his very hot lover, he was currently tapping his foot on the plush carpet of the room.

“Say I agree…” Daiki’s grin turned victorious, “What will we do with the other four minutes?”

The smile on the male in bed was instantaneously wiped off.

“What?”

The voice was so small.

Taiga leered. “I said,” he placed on knee on the bed, towering over Daiki’s helplessly splayed body, delicious dips of his muscle spread bare, the thin cover of the bed sheet teasing a view Taiga has already seen, but his hands were already reaching for the treasure hidden underneath it. “If I agree to five minutes in bed, what,” he slipped the sheet slowly off the smooth dark skin, “will we,” bunching the material in his fist, he leaned for the now exposed hip, kissing the skin there lightly, “do with,” he trailed a wet tongue against the bone and down the curve towards the groin. Taiga made sure he was taking steady exhales, seeing little Goosebumps they were making in their wake, “the other four minutes?”

“Hnn,” at the sound, Taiga grinned against heated flesh, drawing back, gazing at the prompt response his ministrations led to. Standing proud against a nest of deep blue-black curls, the little Daiki was braving its raging head at Taiga.

“So, since you haven’t said anything, and clearly, this _highly_ classified information is only worth a minute of my time,” Taiga withdrew, taking his knee of the bed. Daiki’s eyes widened, “I’ll be going. I’ve already _delayed_ too long here with you.”

With less of a fanfare than Taiga was playing in his head, the redhead pivoted on his heel, snatching the lone tie that was hanging off the bedside lamp, and started to knot it. The tongue sticking out of his mouth was only know to him and the gods above, because Daiki was burying his face into the pillow, screaming bloody murder.

“You fucking wait, Kagami!” Taiga heard when he reached the front door. “You ever ask the Secret Service for _anything_ so help me God, I will—” The rest was drowned out as Taiga left, smirking all the way to the elevator.

He did not have to worry; Daiki was always weak to pleasure.

God forbid Akashi Seijūrō knew how thoroughly the Secret Service was being used by the lowly Police Department.

 

 

* * *

 

**Author’s Note:** So a friend was telling me about…things I never wanted to know, and she mentioned “Every time he says stay in bed for another five minutes, I know it’s going to be only about him.” And then I remembered!

The Closer (please tell me someone has watched this serial), has so many good one-liners about 5-minute quickies!! I couldn’t let this pass. [Which means…I also don’t remember which episodes I have taken them from…OTL]

Sorry friend. You were a good source of inspiration (I could have done without the details though…)


	3. Outtake of KnB Epilogue: Touou Gakuen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **This was a request on my Tumblr :) "Something small if I had time". I did. So here it is! :3**

 

Translation of KnB Epilogue : Tōō Gakuen Edition

[Thanks to Violinic on Tumblr!](http://violinic.tumblr.com/post/100440383665/epilogue-1-kaijou-epilogue-2-shuutoku-epilogue) :D

* * *

 

 

“So how’s ya studies?” Imayoshi decides to ask, watching with a keen eye as Aomine steals the ball from Wakamatsu in spite, starting one of the drills being conducted on the court.

Susa sighs, heavily, “Not good, I might have failed my entrance exam…”

“If ya want, I can tell ya some backdoor methods,” he leans on his cheek, facing his friend and ex-teammate, showing concern.

In an instant, Susa starts sweating, late on the uptake. “It doesn’t sound like a joke when you say it…” he ends up saying, before, stiffening. “And it was probably your fault I failed anyway!”

Imayoshi straightens up. “What? How so? I recall going out of mah way to make diagrams for ya even!” In emphasis, he bangs a closed fist onto the railing he was previously leaning on.

“It was the same terrible  _diagrams_  that you drew for me that got me in a snit! All I could remember was how bad they were and not what was written in them!”

“That’s cruel!”

“What are you talking about?! My future depends on those exams! You ruined me with your sucky penmanship!”

_Down below…_

“Who’s going to tell them to leave?” Wakamatsu wanted to know.

Aomine snorted, ignoring them, and Momoi was hardly to be seen around.

Sakurai, the unfortunate bystander, went blue in the face.

“Sakurai, come here a moment,” Wakamatsu grinned, hand reaching out to grab the shaking fawn that was their shooting guard.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t make me do it, I’m sorry to be alive, so please don’t—”

 

 

* * *

  **Author’s Note:**  Honestly, I read the epilogues last week, and since then, I kept thinking of poor Susa being tormented by Imayoshi’s “help via drawings”.

 **Also:**  Thanks to KnB’s NG Shoot Volume 8: #45 (or 48, I think) where Susa and Imayoshi are studying and can’t concentrate due to the game Seirin is about to play instead of them.


	4. Only One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **There was a sharp pain that Taiga could not describe as though two hands were tearing at his chest and trying to dig in deep, searching, but could not find what they were looking for. He almost wanted to help out and say _here it is; here is my heart._**

**Disclaimer(s):** I apologise, but lately, I have been thinking a lot about AoKagaAo dancing. And then a recap of Red Band Society was playing in my Aunt’s place, and I just-couldn’t!!! ;_; Aomine has some osteosarcoma (cancer of the bone cells) and this is the night before his operation to amputate the affected leg (knee down).

* * *

 

 

When Taiga walked into the room, he was way past visiting hours and the only reason anyone saw it fit to let him pass was due to the patient he was visiting.

Neither says anything as Taiga shifts into the room with heavy feet trying to be light. The large teenager awkwardly tries to be quiet, and while on usual days he is perfectly able to, this evening everything feels wrong.

“Stop fidgeting so much, Bakagami,” Daiki ends up speaking through a gusting sigh, raising one arm holding a remote to switch the television off. The dulled noise that was blanketing Taiga’s beating heart was unfairly taken away and all the redhead could do was still his movements, his breath as though the loud thumping of his pumping organ would cease. He breathes in steadily, slowly; deep inhales, soft, shaky exhales that take longer than necessary to empty out into the room.

Umber eyes gently move from the stiffly laid out male on crisp white and turquoise hospital bed covers, long lean legs crossed at the ankles, arms appearing to be carelessly thrown to the sides, hard and angry. “I heard from Kuroko.”

Daiki does not say anything to that, but a ghost of a smile splits his lips open. His cheeks loose the elasticity and his lips fall back.

Taiga clenches his fists at his knees. “…I,” He almost does not know what he wants the other to know, and he almost does not want to be reckless with his words. But coming here, to this room, looking at the barely present Aomine Daiki, the Ace of the—Taiga cannot even think of that anymore. He does not know, with each heartbeat, with each breath, with each flicker of an eyelid, how after knowing the other teenager he could go on being the same. Being normal. Being the one—

“Hey, Kagami,” Taiga lifts his head that had been slowly falling to his chest, blinking his eyes rapidly, nose burning, breath coming short, “Do me a favour?”

A little stunned at the initial request, and a little wary, he nods once.

“I…” It was funny, how their roles were reversed at this point, “When I was in middle school, Satsuki made it a point for me to learn how to dance, you know?” Daiki chuckles. The sound is soft and pleasant and unlike the despondent look in those blue eyes. “We fought, because,” shoulders that are looking small, so very small, shrug, “When will I ever need to dance, you know? All I needed was basketball.”

There was a sharp pain that Taiga could not describe as though two hands were tearing at his chest and trying to dig in deep, searching, but could not find what they were looking for. He almost wanted to help out and say _here it is; here is my heart_.

It would not help the other though.

“Can we dance?”

The words strike a chord in Taiga. He blinks, surprised, unsure. “Hm?”

Daiki laughs, uncertain, but insistent, rubbing the back of his head shyly, “I don’t know if I’ll ever get this chance, and while you aren’t a sweet little petite thing with big boobs, and not even close to Mai-chan’s—”

“C’mon,” Taiga is half-surprised and half not that he is already standing before the bed, fingers curling slowly and judiciously around a wrist he has never touched. Daiki keeps the rest of the words to himself, eases off the bed, and lets Taiga guide him to the centre of the available free space in the room. There is no music.

“Do you know how to dance?” There is slight wonder to the thought, and Daiki’s head is bent to the floor, watching their feet. Taiga has face-first meeting with the hair-whorl of the boy, and he muses at the shape. The curve of the neck is small, the jutting impression of spine sharp. The hands Taiga holds in some weird fashion of an embrace are shaking so slightly, he would have not noticed if his knees were quivering under their cover of his pants.

“Sort of?” Taiga answers. “I mean, how difficult could it get?” Daiki ducks his head again, still looking at their feet. Taiga cannot tell if he was worried about stepping on his toes or that he was— “Aomine?”

“Hn?”

“Look at me.”

Daiki tenses in his hands, but the swaying motion they were in—side to side, slow turns around the room, side to side—does not stop. Instead of throwing back his head in all the cockiness that one would put in the same line as Aomine Daiki’s name, only a slight shift in posture allows deep blue pools to glance at Taiga.

Wanting to change this ( _want to change so many things!_ ), Taiga releases Daiki’s right wrist to slither his arm around a slim waist. It was an awkward enough moment, Taiga knows he will never do this with any other male, but Daiki’s body jerking in shock and then leaning against his appendage makes it difficult to believe he would ever turn the other away if asked again.

The small laugh that tumbles smoothly off his tongue and into the crown of Daiki’s hair is breathless. Taiga’s chest is not tight as he expresses the emotion. “Momoi would probably be angry that this is how you ended up retaining the knowledge of dancing.”

From where he is looking, small creases form around the eyes and the edge of Daiki’s mouth. “What’s that—”

“When you dance,” Taiga increases his grip around Daiki’s waist, pulls, and twirls him so suddenly, Daiki has no other alternative than to look around wildly, facing Taiga. Taiga laughs, louder. Warmer. “You should be looking at your partner and not your feet.” Dusting of a dull pink across cheeks. “Otherwise I’m going to anticipate for when my beautiful toes are squashed.”

Daiki cracks an unusual smile. “The better to remember me by.”

And the soft, pleasant mood dissipates. Like cotton being stuffed into his mouth, Taiga’s throat feels dry from spittle and air. He does not realise the effort he puts into keeping Daiki in his arms until the other shifts, trying to put a distance between them that scares Taiga for an unknown amount of reasons.

“Don’t,” he ends up saying, then repeating, and repeating until neither of the two boys know which one is crying because their sight is blurred.

“You wanted to dance, remember?” He ends up choking out, clenching the trembling hand in his, clutching the thin material of the t-shirt Daiki was wearing. “So we will dance.”

They sway and twirl with no sense of rhythm, each playing a song in their head, afraid to sound it out loud, afraid to break the moment. Sometimes their knees knock against each other, where they stifle snorts of laughter at the absurdity of the situation, but Daiki holds a smile, and Taiga hold Daiki.

In the end, emotionally exhausted, Taiga helps Daiki to his bed, and watched as firm hands twist themselves into the covers.

“So…”

Taiga glances up but Daiki is taking his time looking back.

“This is it, huh?”

Weakly, unamused, Taiga says something that is close to what he has been thinking about. “You sound as if this is your last night.”

“Heh,” Daiki cranes his neck, “It is for the Aomine Daiki that you know, right?”

There, the arrogance he is familiar with. Taiga grins.

“So?” Daiki tries not to blink. “Just show me the Aomine Daiki that has always been hidden by that snob I knew, you know?” Wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, lightening the mood, Taiga hopes he is moving along the direction which would make this parting easier if not just as difficult.

“Ha,” the syllable sounds forced, from the chest, past his throat, through his mouth, tongue flat and think in his mouth. “Ha…haha…” The fingers of the hand clutching the sheets tighten, pulling, dragging the material closer, and now shoulders shake, head low and chin vibrating. “Hahaha…hahahaha!”

Taiga wonders if he has finally broken the Aomine Daiki that he knew.

“You’re hilarious, Kagami Taiga!” there, again, that Aomine. Daiki’s eyes are wide, blue, and scared. “There is only one me, and that’s Aomine Daiki!”

One shoulder moves by itself, shrugging; Taiga will not deny that. “Aa.”

“Only one,” Daiki repeats, strangled, “Only one.”

He stretches out a hand; fingers curled partially, knuckles grazing against the transparent liquid trailing hot cheeks. Daiki tenses, but does not move away, though his eyes follow Taiga’s hand, hypnotised.

“Only one,” Taiga agrees, “Aomine Daiki.”

“A…Aa, remember that.”

Taiga smiles, it is hard but he does it, wide and assuring, and his chest aches and bleeds this unfamiliar pain—like when his parents ( _no, no, don’t think about that_ ), like when his ( _no!_ )—and unable to tell where the messages his brain is picking up to open his hand and gently hold the cheek of the one and only Aomine Daiki, Taiga says, “I’ll remember that.”

Daiki smiles, a little lost, a little lonely, a little afraid. His hand, hot ( _but so cold!_ ), reaches up to place it on Taiga’s own hand. He opens his mouth to say something, and no words come out; he gnarls his teeth to himself silently as Taiga looks on.

“When you are done with the operation, I’ll come see you,” Taiga ignores how Daiki raises the lost words from before into words of refusal now, “And we can see about how we can continue your request.”

Thin eyebrows shoot high up on a smooth forehead unobstructed by hair, irises as blue as they can get. “Request?”

“You know, dancing,” Taiga grins, more easily, more natural, “Because frankly, you suck at it.”

He spends the last few moments with an outraged Daiki, insisting that it was Taiga who does not know how to move his too big feet, until that is, Taiga reminds him that they both have the same size—Daiki just had to practice more if he ever wanted to be good at it.

“Just you wait!” Daiki emphasises with a shaking fist in his face. “I’ll show you!”

Taiga laughs again. “I’ll hold you to that!”

 

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Note:** I will assume I am hated. Note how I didn’t talk about basketball at all… (✖╭╮✖)


	5. Up Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Kagami thought he would have the last laugh.**

* * *

 

 

The day Aomine pulls down his pants in front of Kagami, the redhead could only stare.

Cheeks heated with the unneeded attention, Aomine scowls. "What?"

Kagami, eyes flickering, shakes his head, remaining mute. He turns to the side, drapes his towel over his head and continues with his tasks. This does not go over well with Aomine who voices it out.

"Hey," Kagami glances back, and Aomine shifts forward. Kagami's eyes dart down even though his clenched jaw says he wants to do otherwise. There is a twitch to his cheek, and his umber red eyes are narrowed to mere slits.

"Yea?"

"My eyes are up here," Aomine points with two fingers. Said eyes are looking down a slender, proud nose.

The cheek twitched again. "I know."

Aomine's right hand flinched, curling empty into a fist. Kagami trailed his eyes down to the digits slowly being hidden before his eyes dashed sideways across the other's thighs, and did a massive 180 back to the starting point.

"Doesn't seem like it," Aomine growled back, coming forward, only to bump into the bench separating the two on either side of the row they were at. At every blink, the redhead's eyes went up and down, up and down. A shiver--whether from the cool room or the exposed skin--made his toes want to curl too, but Aomine made sure they were flat on the ground. "You keep looking like you want to say something."

Kagami wisely kept his lips pursed. He shook his head.

"C'mon," Aomine grinned, but the look in his eyes made it apparent that anything Kagami said was going to be the hammer that drops and he was likely to survive an avalanche than the bullet Aomine was in this tiny space.

"Aomine," it was not his voice—Kagami’s would have cracked on the first syllable; only that man could keep a straight face here—“You're making Kagami uncomfortable with your choice of underwear. Move away from him."

On another day, Kagami would have snapped at the green haired male, smirking and pushing up his glasses with his Holier than Thou fingers, but right at this minute, if Midorima had asked him to kiss said fingers while on one knee, he would have. Surreptitiously, he catches Midorima's clear green eyes and the minute smile he hides behind the palm of his hand, before looking back at the (now obviously) fuming Aomine.

"Oh yea?! You're uncomfortable with MY choice of underwear, ya creep?!" A dark skinned hand shot out to smack him in the chest. "At least they aren't some flouncy, coloured, uncoordinated shitfest that has probably never seen the insides of a washing machine, less than you've seen a fucking washrag!"

The twitch in his cheek gave way, and Kagami's lips wobbled. "Flouncy?" He repeated, quieter than he thought he would have. Aomine's face notched a few more alarming shades of red; he would not be surprised if he turned a blue to match his hair.

"What the fuc—”

Unable to take it, facing Midorima, he bends over, one arm supporting his middle and the other slapping his knee. "Y-you are calling MY boxers flouncy when you are in your tighty-whitey's Mama's boy!" Another peal of raucous laughter bounced around the walls of the shared locker room. He was so into his laughter spiel that he did not notice Aomine round up behind him, grab the waistband of his boxers and _pull_ with such force, Kagami thought he was seeing stars.

The extra blurb of laughter—the kind that was more a surprise to its owner than to those witnessing it—was not needed, in Kagami's opinion, braced on his knees at the intense pain. Through blurry eyes, craning his neck, he came face-to-crotch with Aomine.

Cocking a hip that was too sinful at this time, Aomine asked, "Aren't they fucking beautiful, Kagami?" Kagami glared through one eye with concentrated effort. "It's Egyptian cotton, 625 thread count." Aomine leaned forward, forcing Kagami to back away, "You wouldn't want to get out of them."

And the predatory grin made Kagami's throat clench tight.

 

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Notes:** The actual truth?

The cashier at the convenience store and some guy in my dorm were talking about the underwear on sale, and they have been on this ‘sale’ for months! So the cashier (who is undeniably cute) exclaims at the top of his lungs “They’re Egyptian Cotton! 625 count! You’ll never fucking want to get out of them!” And all he gets is, “Dude, that’s sick.” What makes it worse was that we (my classmate and I) walk in just then. You could just tell he wanted to dig a hole for himself. :P


	6. Travelling Flirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> **Never leave a basketball idiot to buy plane tickets, is Kagami Taiga's sincere thoughts.**   
> _Guest Appearances from I'll (Generation Basket)._   
> 

Saw this request just as I was leaving for my own flight. But because of that, I had even more time to change it from a five sentence thing to a whole short piece :P

For the sake of order and probability, I’m adding the ‘ _who buys the tickets?_ ’ to this mess...

* * *

 

 

Taiga tries to distract himself, tapping his fingers on their shared hand rest, willing away the god-awful amount of time they were to spend together _in the freaking centre of the plane_ because AHOmine Daiki could not read a seating chart online.

“It didn’t fucking say I could change the seats,” was the pitiful defence, and as sad as it was, Daiki stuck to it like a Captain to his sinking ship. Not amused in the slightest, Taiga clenches his eyes shut and prays to any god listening at this point, to make either one of the two on his right to _shut up_.

It would turn out, to Taiga’s utmost displeasure that, despite what people expected from the couple, Daiki was the one who chatted up strangers. On a flight. Where, Taiga glares at the narrow beam separating one seat from the other, the distance was too small a space for his liking between said stranger and his significant other.

One hand comes up to his tired facial muscles, rubbing up and down, and tried not to eavesdrop on the conversation his other half was having with a man who could have been their age; he was, grudgingly, good looking, pale skinned with narrowed hazel eyes, and had a similar disposition to Daiki—smooth flowing movements and suave grin.

“Aho,” Taiga tries, fearing fruitlessness, turning to stare at the back of Daiki’s head, “You’d want to sleep now if you want to have a good time for the rest of the flight.” The redhead makes sure he uses a tone of superiority, as one who has travelled so many times by air. However, one side glance from Daiki and Taiga is losing what little patience he was pretending to have from the beginning when they got their tickets.

Daiki scoffs. “I’ll be fine, _bakagami_ ,” he says, a hint of snide, a hint of recklessness, “I’ll nap off later.” And promptly turns back to conversing with his neighbour, who, Taiga clenches his teeth, grinding, raises an amused eyebrow up at him. What makes everything even more worse is the fact that Daiki actually turns his body away from him to face this good-looking stranger more.

Before he can tell both of them off, an annoyed growl permeates their row. He leans forward a bit, catching the glower for what it is worth, a dark haired male of equal attractive countenance with bright eyes narrowed; he has a death grip on the fair-skinned male’s hand on the shared hand rest. “Hitonari, you're my boyfriend, so I'm forbidding you from chatting. And smiling.”

Fair-skinned ‘Hitonari’, scoffed, eyes rolling, “What are you trying to say? i'll kill you,” as though this happens all the time.

Deciding it was up to him, Taiga throws one arm across Daiki’s shoulders, fingers against his lean throat pulling him back against his chest, he announces to the other two sharing their row, “Well, what a coincidence: he’s my boyfriend, too. Tell yours to keep his paws off.”

The elbow in his stomach was not appreciated, and the silent treatment throughout the journey was even less so.

The next time they were travelling, Taiga was booking the tickets.

 

* * *

 

**Author's End Note:** So...it's come to my notice how badly I've been neglecting this site T___T. Apologies *bows head*.


	7. Erred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
> **The sight of the figure on the floor is something he will never forget. And will never forgive.**   
> _Kise Ryōta and Kuroko Tetsuya [KiKuro]_   
> 

* * *

 

 

 

Water was dripping down the sides of the open window, slowly filling up the sill before pouring generously onto the tiled flooring. The piles of paper all around the floor were victims to the water that would invariably flood the room if the owner either did not close the window or the tantrum thrown by the storm extending into one sour, pouting child. Though the likelihood of the former happening was less; the owner, blond with earthen amber eyes, curled protectively over a much lithesome being on the floor before the sofa, looked like he would rather go stark-raving-mad and cause a genocide than move from his position.

The other, powder blue hair clumped to the side of a youthful head, breathing shallow, frame shaking, clutched with white knuckles at the dark shirt the blond wore. The youth’s eyes, dulled, were staring into nothing. The man, his amber eyes were stormy, like the skies outside, rays of orange and red from the departing sun towards the horizon streaking as far as they could, strokes so vibrantly loud as the way his heart thudded with deafening precision inside his chest; every so often his hold on the younger male tightened.

“I'm not letting you go.”

The statement was whispered, but in the silent room with only the rain as a buffer, seemed to echo the words a thousand times until they came back to him. He closed his eyes. Pale, deadened blues still looked over the space of his shoulder and his savagely bright yellow hair, a contrast to the meek tones of the dark room. He was trying to control his racing heartbeat, and he was trying to maintain his hold on the young male who felt like he would break and crumble into dust if he was not careful, but if the man did not hold the boy too close, the small body would disappear all the same.

“Heard me, Kurokocchi?”

The briefest of nods. A sigh leaves previously pursed lips, body uncoiled from its tense stance; the man melts carefully against the support of the sofa.

“You better.”

And he stilled again, to look at the now glaring blues, that it was maddening. It frightened him sometimes, when the boy held such a mature look on his young face, insinuating such threatening things; things he would have never said otherwise; so he wondered where he learnt how to talk that way.

Ignoring the sudden change in mood, he stroked sweaty blue hair back down. Unconsciously he hummed, not really paying attention that he was going through a few different melodies, the listener not really caring. But the fact was that they remained in silence, one hoping the other would forget what had just happened; the other forging it to memory so as to not be surprised by the feeling of betrayal again.

As it were, to err is human, and to forgive, divine.*

 

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Notes:** *‘To err is human; to forgive, divine’ by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), is by far my favourite quotes. [And possibly used in preaching to those who ask me to forgive a lot of shit that I have gone through and/or still go through in my life.]

It was raining slightly over here where I was participating at a wake a few days back, and some eerie thoughts filled my head. Assume what you would like for this piece. I’d rather not give a proper definition for it. A quick spurt of…something. A little change of pace with some dark KiKuro...hope you guys didn't mind ^^;


	8. Works

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **They are too big for each other, and he spends years thinking this.**

* * *

**Author’s Note:** I am shameless…I am sitting in the office of my course chairperson with my course coordinator and writing this short on my phone. Because I can. And I need to calm down. Soo…please excuse any mistakes (God, you guys already are so nice to excuse other mistakes of my life OTL), and hopefully, enjoy! :)

Also, quite a pointless piece… OTL.

* * *

 

 

 

They are too big for each other.

It is a thought Daiki keeps in his head, quiet, but palms the hard rounded edges of Kagami’s shoulders. Said appendages were larger than that of his own, though, on occasion, Daiki overpowered the redhead. He trails his hands down from the shoulders to his forearms, systematically pressing and feeling the biceps and triceps of each arm, curling around the sharp elbows, cupping them. Thoughts of how Daiki does not fit properly, comfortably, in Kagami’s bigger lap stews in his mind, but it is unrequired to breach an audible phase.

Kagami, despite this awkwardness, makes it work.

The man does not fully cross his legs, allowing for only the sides of his heels to hold Daiki off the floor, perched, the underside of his feet touching as though offering peace. Daiki can rest his long muscled legs akimbo in the almost loose, almost closed hold Kagami’s lower half has of him.

Daiki finds this pose amusing: his dark knees resting on tanned cream thighs, Daiki’s elbows propping his upper body to face Kagami, and the redhead, his eyes even on downtime were fierce, boring into him, making it impossible for Daiki to look anywhere else than right back at the honest open expression on the slack face.

Kagami makes this pose work.

(At first, tumbling off the single furniture the other hand in his then apartment, onto the man’s lap, Daiki had cursed and whined quite unlike a man would; he had threatened, swung his fist, possibly even kneed and aggressively pinched the other’s nipple in punishment, but Kagami…Kagami just bore it with clicks of his tongue, gnashed teeth through the pain, and wrestled Daiki onto his lap.

“Just—” Kagami broke in, voice not loud and shrill, but firm, pleading, a tone the man never even used when begging for one-on-ones with him, “Just wait a while.”

Daiki froze, uncertain.

“Why?” He had asked.

Kagami could not give a reason. Whatever he had wanted to do was unexplainable, maybe even difficult to put into words, or maybe something Daiki would have socked him right into the next year for if it had so much as displeased his sensibilities.)

Thinking back, Daiki chuckles, well aware of how different his mentality to that time was. He pacifies himself that he was not softer now—maybe even more aggressive, taking all the affection the other had to offer and more, like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum fit for a feudal young lord—but he appreciates the burning touch of Kagami’s hands firmly keeping him steady on the heels of his feet. The hold does not stifle Daiki. It does not dampen his mood. It does not make him feel effeminate for liking how Kagami tries to keep him in his hold when they are both too big for such an affectionate pose.

(Kagami’s eyes darted all over his body, now too close, face aflame in possible embarrassment. Before Daiki could lash out with “I should be the one embarrassed!”, Kagami brings one flailing hand to his mouth, curled fingers facing Daiki.

“Sorry,” a dulcet apology is mumbled. Red eyes, for once not glaring at him, for once not trying to wordlessly plead with him, are watery as they dart from Daiki’s torso to his face. “I guess this was too soon for me.”

There was a certain uncomfortable feeling in his body, and clutching his shirt tight against his chest, that same feeling bubbles up in soft snorts. By the time he is outright laughing, Kagami has abandoned covering his face demurely and is holding onto Daiki, preventing his early and obviously well-missed demise.

The heat from the other—such an innocent boy at that time—snapped Daiki into the here and now, stilling, reared away from Kagami and hysteric laughter calming down.

Kagami does not speak, palms on Daiki’s thighs feeling moist, so he knows that that alone is enough.

Daiki smiles, edging forward, and cheekily kisses his forehead.)

Now Kagami’s hands do not sweat. Once trembling fingers are straight, secure, able against his bare skin. Even naked as they were, Daiki does not feel the embarrassment from all those years ago.

“Hey,” Kagami says, still looking at him.

“Hm?”

“It’s becoming much more comfortable, huh?”

His eyebrows draw together, not in a frown, and his face is still slackened into a smile. “Yea,” which was true, so Daiki does not concentrate on how Kagami is moving his hands from the sides of his thighs to the curve of his bottom, fingers carefully cupping the globes.

“Guess you’re finally losing all that muscle you were so proud of,” Daiki stiffens in Kagami’s arms, eyes wide, “and putting on weight like a lazy housewife,” Kagami ends, all seriousness audible in his tone. “Huh,” he pats Daiki’s bottom to confirm. “Good.”

Bristling—because what else was he supposed to do before killing Kagami?!—he demands, “What’s good about that?!”

Kagami cocks his head to one side, frowning adorably for a middle-aged man, “Doesn’t it feel better now, sitting like this?” He holds Daiki tighter, “You used to keep shifting all the time, and your bones used to dig into my feet.” Kagami glances in between their legs then back up at him, sincere, “Now you don’t mind sitting like this for long periods of time.”

Daiki has an ‘huh’ moment for himself, hands slackening from their cupping grip of Kagami’s elbows. Those numerous years where he thought he was being silent on how wrong this embrace felt to the two of them, Kagami never missed out on it. And the man—this divine gift to him—bore with it, and tolerated it silently.

Clenching his eyes tight, smiling largely, he figures it is also Kagami’s bullheadedness at play, taking years to perfect this pose of theirs, this embrace, because they (in everyone’s eyes) were too big, too wrong for each other. A cute thing with a large size difference would have worked better, more natural than them, but—Kagami pulls his arms away to interlace their fingers, knotting them at the knuckles, warm—this right here between each of them was the proof of the years they had unwittingly struggled with to be the perfect piece to their other half.

Daiki knows, like how Kagami kept silent, that there would be more topics brought up in which they had started off awkwardly but now, so many, uncountable years later, they are still at it, still in each other’s arms, still embracing.

So yes, Daiki grins as he bows his head closer to Kagami, kissing him, cheeky; he likes this pose that Kagami has made work for them.

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Notes:** (╯﹏╰) at times like this…I wonder what my brain is made of…

Oh well, that's two updates in a day :D


	9. It's That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **All he wants to do now is warm his ears and remember to steal the covers from that fool’s unused futon and find where his bed was pushed and while he’s at it, tell that same fool to do something about the broken washing machine _tomorrow_ because it was too loud to do anything for it today— _and was that—?!_**

 

* * *

  
Dedicated to seafoamish, the AoKaga Fix that you never got by hunting my useless tags!

_Hope this satisfies that craving!_ :)

* * *

 

 

 

It could have been any other thing, is the expression painted on the young man’s face, weary and grim, eyes narrowed not in anger but with the days of staying awake. Using artificial medicated drops to clear away the blur of red lines on his sclera, veins breaking down in his skin to cause dark circles around his eyes, eyelids beyond tired beating furiously to stay steady and upright, were the daily stress markers of the past few weeks. There were many questions; just as many of them started off with _why_ , they ended on the same dreary note of _not going to be today either_. It is with these thoughts a few early morning stragglers are glancing back at the man as he trudged pass them in the new sleet left behind from the morning’s snowfall.

Of the tall redheaded man with a large white scarf wrapped tight around his neck and lower face, one could only see the despicably taken care of eyes, the furrows on his forehead visible with each sweep of wind against the angular ridges of his pale face. Similarly, due to the unwanted wind, his tired cheeks are flushed and burning. Hours back, he had walked all the way to the station just to see the last train leave the platform, then hear about the storm warning, and finding no other shelter, he had traversed back to the campus to spend the night in the library.

Kagami Taiga hated this weather the most.

He also, without need of any threatening from an outside source, would admit hating University and what they called end-term exams. “Who needed those?” He grumbled, hunching his shoulders further hoping his burning ears would warm up. In his sleep deprivation, he had run out the previous morning without his earmuffs, and staring at all the women with their cutesy ones were causing his mood to slump further. All he could think was, _how do they manage to dress like that during this time? Don’t they ever need sleep?!  Women are scary!!_

Not having a womanly presence in his life to educate him on the fact—one could not count Alex or Aida- _kantoku_ as women, what with one being a exhibitionistic, monster basketball player, and the other, purely put, a monster—made such aspects in his mind vague. Even his relationship with Aomine was not the regular touchy-feely kind, and sometimes…sometimes Taiga wondered what that meant for them; neither was effeminate, and if they were going to point fingers, it would surely be Taiga being called on it. He dismisses Momoi on the virtue that he plain did not understand her.

He passes by the street court that is close to the apartment they rented together, glancing and frowning at the amount of snow gathered on its blacktop with annoyance. _Such a waste_ , he trudges past it, hunkering against the wind chill and hoping the last few hundred meters to the apartment complex would disappear sooner. Even as his mind tracks back to the days when it was warmer and the court usable, how the sides of the fence barrier would be crowded with the children of the neighbourhood, some odd teenagers and a few curious adults watched as Aomine and Taiga played their usual fast paced one-on-ones. The thoughts alone bring some warmth to his body, a phenomenon that he cannot explain, feeling the absent sun’s rays on his head, his exposed arms, his neck, and the sweat that trickles down his shirt. Like a mirage, he can see Aomine, grinning furiously in his ardent response to Taiga demanding a rematch.

No sooner than his mind is filling him up with glowing warmth, he has reached the base of the stairs to the complex. Taiga pulls his hands out of his jacket pockets, thankful for the pocket heaters he had on his person, pulling away at the preposterously long scarf that Momoi had gifted him for Christmas, and tramped up. His hands pause at his ears, forgetting that he had no earmuffs on and jejunely placed the blame on _AHOmine, that fool_ , _he must have thrown it in some corner_ and Taiga pulls out his keys in quick succession. All he wants to do now is warm his ears and remember to steal the covers from said fool’s unused futon and find where his bed was pushed and while he’s at it, tell that same fool to do something about the broken washing machine _tomorrow_ because it was too loud to do anything for it today— _and was that—?!_

Taiga’s mind comes to a grinding halt at the sight before him.

As the door had swung open, the soft air of warmth spread out, playfully grasping at his red and possibly frostbit ears, pulling him into their embrace. But it was not the welcoming of the warmth that stopped him, it was that.

Aomine wearing nothing but an apron.

“W-What are you doing?” He stumbles out, both in words and actions, quickly stepping into their _genkan_ and struggling to maintain his balance to undo his boots. It was a lost cause, so he dumps his belongs to one side and just continues staring. _This_ was not what he was expecting when he arrived home. Gone were the dregs of sleep trying to cling to his puffy, sore eyes. “Why are you playing some weird newly-wed husband fantasy by yourself? This whole setting seems wrong.”

“Hahn?” Aomine made that god-awful noise in his closed mouth, propping on his right leg to keep the balance that was currently failing Taiga, using the other to scratch said calf of the leg, right hand on a bare waist, the disgustingly (now that he thought about it) manly apron he uses to cook and wash up was covering everything Taiga could possibly want to see right about now. The hand that was preoccupied holding up— _was that a spatula?_ —was now rising up to free a finger so that Aomine could scratch at his ear. “ _Okaeri._ ”

Aomine looked put out.

The (sweet) surprise was minutely put on hold to question it.

“Ah, I was waiting so long for you to get back home, but then my stomach couldn’t deal with being empty for so long, so I went to cook.”

It was as though someone unplugged the TV during a much anticipated game.

“What?” Even Taiga shivered at his own tone.

Aomine just stared at him.

“Are you wearing _my_ apron naked _to feed yourself?!_ ” Taiga does not remember where the Herculean strength came from, but it was much appreciated as he unbooted himself, pulled at the winter jacket to sail over his head and stormed closer to Aomine who was not backing down the slightest. _Can’t he figure out he’s going to get his nose punched in?!_ As he got into Aomine’s personal space, the usually present gloom on his face deepened.

“What are you on? Of course I made enough for the two of us.” Aomine glares back fully, but then narrows his eyes looks at the ceiling and pouts, “I think.”

“ _Which is it?!”_ Taiga wants to know now, while his ears are still burning from the cold outside and his arms are feeling the adrenaline rush all the way to his fingers, curling them up and ready to fly into that dastardly handsome face of his boyfriend. His very egoistically spoilt, pampered, selfish and warm boyfriend; from where they were literally chest-to-chest at, Taiga can feel the heat from the other man.

“Well…” Aomine cracks into a sheepish chuckle, as though the presence of such a sweet smile on the usually domineering male was enough to put out the fire in Taiga’s veins, “It could pass of as a snack?” Taiga blinked. “I tried cooking more, but you know how it is…the taste changes when you try to accommodate for something you’re not used to.”

The admission, he realises, was supposed to be unforthcoming for someone like Aomine who only knew how to play tormenter.

“Oi,” Aomine snaps him back to the present situation, “You’ll eat now?”

Taiga makes an agreeable sound, still stunned, and Aomine grabs a hold of him and pulls him further into the house. He redhead does not even think to see if Aomine would be flashing him as he leads, and soon, Taiga is pushed to sit at the table in the centre of their small living area. The TV is suspiciously powered off, and the room looks a little different than it did the previous day, but Taiga does not comment because Aomine brings the whole pot of whatever it was that he made to the table.

Brandishing Taiga’s set of chopsticks and a spoon, he lowers himself heartily as he says grace. “Don’t expect too much,” Aomine mumbles, probably not realising he was blushing, “It’s not as great as yours is, but it was something I could make quickly.”

“Hm?” Taiga looks up from the mess of chicken fried rice, or what he thinks is chicken fried rice.

Aomine is already eating, pausing to take a sip of the juice he poured out for them—no liquor or carbonated drinks in their apartment—glancing upwards to keep Taiga in his line of sight. As he finishes, he points at the phone laying abandoned on the table near them, “You sent a message when you left.”

Taiga shifts his eyes back. “…That was four hours ago…” The first train of the day had been delayed, so counting the waiting time to the second train’s arrival and the about twenty minutes in the snow walk from their station to the apartment complex was…which meant… Aomine had…“You…”

Aomine’s cheeks unfairly coloured again. Grumpily, placing one cheek in the palm of his hand as he stabbed his food with the other wielding the chopsticks, he mumbles, “It’s that…you know…saw you through the window when you were down the street.” Aomine looked everywhere but pack at him, trying to, unsuccessfully, play it off.

One lone red eyebrow rose slowly in understanding. “You…” Taiga smacked his utensils on the table, he rounded the table, throwing his arms around one surprised and seemingly naked male, throwing them both flat on the floor, laughing giddily. “You missed me!”

Aomine scowled loudly near his ear as Taiga buried his face into his shoulder, his slowly warming up nose nuzzling just at the sharply jutting out collarbone. He littered numerous kisses on the skin there, cheeks hurting from the grin his mouth would not stop making. “I did not!” was near whined at him.

“Yes you did!” Taiga crows, levering himself up, beaming down at the dark skinned male, “You never would have waited for me if you didn’t, Aho! Instead I would have found you still in bed!”

Then Aomine switches gears, turning his burning face to look Taiga square in the eyes, mouth turning downwards, “Okay, and so? So what if I was?! I know it’s an important time for you, but it’s not like I can—urgh!!” He forcibly stops himself from the word vomit his mouth was taking part in, gritting his teeth at Taiga.

Taiga laughed even more. “Man, and just when I was thinking we were such—!” Taiga cuts off, still smiling, before he leans down and kisses Aomine. It is a simple kiss, pressing numb lips against frowning warm ones. Aomine decides to change that when he raises one hand to keep Taiga in place as he tilts his head and opens his mouth, using his tongue to lull Taiga into taking part.

“You’re such a sap, Aomine Daiki,” Taiga whispers into open-mouthed kisses, and Aomine merely makes a throaty noise to refute it, more concerned in overturning their positions to press Taiga onto the rug. Taiga allows the turn, locking his hands together at the base of Aomine’s neck and is soon looking up into deeply aroused blues. “Such a sap.”

“Continue talking and this sap will take away this delicious heat your body is already craving,” Aomine counters haughtily, pressing his hips closer.

Taiga laughs a final time, pitch changing, husky. “Yea, yea,” he leers back at Aomine who looks like it was his body that needed the heat, lowering Aomine towards him, “As if I’ll let you.”

It does not take long, then, for Taiga’s ears to warm up again.

 

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Notes:** Gosh, was this hard.

It’s been a while since I’ve done the AoKaga pairing domination. And you can tell. ;____;

Well...since it was supposed to be a “pick me up” kind of fic, no NSFW parts XP.


	10. Strip of Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Daiki is known for bearing more skin than his landlady’s grandson cared to show the rest of his tenants and their guests. Little did he know that said landlady’s grandson had enough of his brazen ways…**

* * *

 

**Warning(s):** Nudity? Vulgar language? Vulgarity in general?

**Author’s Note:** It’s been…a long time. But here I am (I don’t even know if I’ll have much to put out, but I’ve never actually stopped writing!!!), and making use of my wasteful time. Please excuse…this weird piece! OTL.

 

* * *

 

 

Also, be aware! Typed up on the phone…so expect spelling errors, grammatical issues, and weirdness (besides the plot, of course). X___X

It was a quiet Sunday in the small apartment complex. Daiki had spent the past few weeks breaking his head over books thicker than his thighs for the semester end exams, and coming home Friday night, spent and exhausted, conked out for most of the weekend. On waking up, showering and thinking about breakfast, he realised something horrible: he had no clean underwear.

Banging his head against the chest of drawers in his room, he sighs tiredly. “Man…of all the times to miss mom…” Idly he looks at the lone framed picture on the chest and sticks his tongue out at the woman showing the victory sign at him while a few years younger, mirror image little Daiki is stuck in a headlock at her side. “Geez…so troublesome…”

Gathering his clothes piled up at one corner into bags, he picks up his phone and keys and stalks out of his 1BHK. Sluggishly, lugging behind two loads worth of soiled clothing unawares of the sight he made, Daiki heads towards the laundry room down the hall. A low hum of the exhaust fan was the only sound that greeted his lousy arrival where the fresh smell of detergent and softener eased his muscles from the short trek. He dumped his burden near his feet, hands on his hips, and then realised the second daunting fact of the quiet morning: he had walked out in his towel.

Scrubbing his face in helplessness—who would believe him if they ran into him? Surely not his landlady who always scorned Daiki for leaning out of his balcony facing the front entrance without a shirt on…or his pants…or even with a towel slung over a shoulder and nothing else—and hung his head backwards. Staring at the plain off-white ceiling, he mused, _no one should be up so goddamn early._ Shrugging, he set about putting one bag into a machine, starting it up and blankly gazing at the second bag. He glanced around, strained his ears, then pulled the second bag closer to another machine and started that up as well. Grinning, he merrily continued on his way.

Just as he was about to close the front-load door, he paused.

And looked down.

And grinned again.

“I’m already indecently hanging about…what’s another strip of skin, right?” Cheekily grinning to himself, he snapped off the dark blue and grey towel, and stuffed it in along with his second load.

Daiki ambled towards the lone row of almost-never-used dryers, swiped his hand across one to check for dust, and finding nothing, flumped onto it, phone in hand.

“Score!” He mumbled, accessing one of the other tenant’s open networks in the apartment complex, switching from his mobile data to the thoughtless person’s. In a way, this should teach that person to not leave their wireless network unprotected from people like him. He was doing them a service, getting onto Niconico, and started browsing through the most viewed videos.

So comfortable he was that he hardly budged when the door opened slowly and a towering male in all his red glory ambled in with a basket. Over his phone they locked eyes, discretely nodded a greeting at each other and was almost on their way to their own business when fiery red eyes drooped low and across. It should have said something when the male’s large mouth hung agape and his arms gave way at the laundry basket, making a loud sound as it thumped onto the floor. Daiki glanced back at the man, down at the basket, and then back again.

The mouth was still slackened.

Daiki clicked his tongue. “What?”

Like a weak person slowly pulling a bucket out a well, a well-defined muscled arm rose to point at him. “You…are not wearing anything.”

He snorted, remembering, but trying to play it cool. “Great observation, genius.” It did not take Daiki much to see the pulsing vein at the man’s right temple. _Great…a hothead._

“We’re in public, asshole.”

Daiki feigned shock. “Oh my! What should I do?!” Immediately, watching the confusion splayed on the man’s lightly tanned skin and weird thick split eyebrows scrunch on his brow, a few chuckles passed his lips. Against his nature—Daiki was not a prude, but he was not an exhibitionist either—but the man before him looked shell-shocked enough to run out screaming if Daiki so much as moved to show more skin, so he did just that. Dropping his hands (which were still clutching his phone) to rest casually in between his legs, Daiki let his knees point away from his body, shoulders drawn back like he has seen many girls do when showing off their breasts. Frankly, if he was a girl, he might have let his dual package jiggle a bit for emphasis.

The man (whose name Daiki did not know as of yet—and may not know if he ran away screaming) went wide-eyed. A colour that should have already dyed his hair and eyes enough, seeped into his skin until he looked like a freshly steamed lobster.

Daiki licked his lips; he had yet to have breakfast.

“Hey…” He called out, leaning further as his legs flexed, bracing him on the smooth surface of the dryer. He let go of the phone with his right hand, aiming to reach and greet the man, but a coy smile was already filtering onto his lips, “I’m Aomine Daiki. What’s yo—” Before he could finish with his sentence, and before his arm even managed to make it halfway out, he saw a rush of colours dyed more red again than necessary, a blooming pain on his head, and then nothing.

 

* * *

 

It felt like déjà vu when he woke up, yawned, looked at the early morning time, cribbed about waking up _so damn early_ , had his shower and wondered about breakfast. His stomach was unimaginably loud, crying and groaning, and making noises he has never heard of before, demanding to be fed. Ignoring it for a few more seconds as he braced himself against his chest of drawers, he realised something: he had no clean underwear.

With a great big sigh, he glanced over at where his dirty pile of clothes usually are, then doing a double-take when there was none in sight. “Huh?” Doing an onceover, he drew a blank. “…What?”

While the first hooks of panic were settling in, Daiki remembered his laundry trip—he remembered going there, against rules using two machines for all his dirty clothes, realising he was virtually naked, met a redheaded hothead—

A redheaded hothead.

Daiki’s eyes widened.

“…A redhead. Hothead. Who fucking _socked my lights out!!!_ ” With a string of expletives that became louder and louder, Daiki scoured his bedroom for clothes to throw on (“I’m a man! I can go without underwear to a fight!”), and found nothing but a pair of sweats hiding behind his tawdry loveseat. Deciding it was better than nothing—and being proud of his natural set of abdominal lines—Daiki blustered out of his room with a mission.

 

* * *

 

Kise was perambulating the walkway downstairs with what looked suspiciously like a camera-crew recording each and every moment of his spiel on living like _a lost lamb when I decided to be independent and found my calling_ , or whatever his script of the day way. Daiki did not care, careening away from the edge of the stair rail, skidding towards the laundry room. He was a few milliseconds from ripping the door off its hinges when the spooky presence of his landlady’s grandson startled the living daylights out of him.

“Aomine-kun,” the grandson said, voice as bland and as dry as the chipping paint on the complex’s walls. The powder-blue haired male, Kuroko Tetsuya, stood unassumingly to the side, as though it was Daiki interrupting the sanctity of the rundown place. “Still not learned your lesson, have you?”

Daiki’s neck let out a loud crack at the uncomfortable craning, eyes bulging out in surprise. “Tetsu, you fuckin’ creep!”

“Aomine-kun, please. Mind your language.” Deep blue eyes that looked more blank than soulful at the moment roved Daiki’s form, and shivering under the assessing stare, balked when the male said, “I see that Kagami-kun did not manage to meet you before you decided to grace the world with your naked presence.”

“Who? That redhead?” He pointed at his face. “The fucker socked me! Kick him out!”

“Ara? What are you guys up to?” Kise Ryōta’s fabulous face popped up before his equally fabulous body followed him up the stairway. The TV-crew scuttled after him dutifully, camera spanning widely in order to capture ever little piece of the interaction.

Tetsuya sighed heavily. “The man you are degrading has more tact being a returnee than you do, living all your pitiable 23 years here in Japan.”

“Kuroko?” On recognising the voice, Daiki swivelled and pointed aggressively at the newcomer.

“’Ah!’” They both sounded as one.

“Fucker!” Daiki bellowed shortly after

“Yesterday’s nudist!” The redhead scowled at the same time.

“Who are you calling nudist?!” Daiki demanded, emphasising his point by stomping his foot on the floor. The redhead smirked, while Tetsuya reprimanded him with “Be quiet, you brute,” but Daiki ignored the other to glare at the other towering male.

“Says today’s stripper,” the man laughed, holding his stomach, to what he does not know, but Daiki can see the slight blush dusting the other’s cheeks.

Catching on quickly enough, Daiki slyly grinned, “Oh, enjoying the display, are you?” The redhead’s laughter sputtered short. “Well take a picture; it’ll last longer!”

Tetsuya, annoyed at being ignored, elbowed Daiki sharply in his side. In turn, before he could recoil back from the sharp pain, Kise draped an arm around his bare shoulders.

“Hey, Aominecchi! I heard about yesterday’s—gahh!!” Kise moaned, grabbing his midsection after Daiki dislodged him none-too-gently. “So cruel, Aominecchi…”

“Piss off, Kise,” Daiki growled out, trying to move away further. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the redhead moving to completely walk past them all towards the two-flight straight staircase at the side of their complex. Not giving up so easily ( _we haven’t even duked it out yet!_ ), Daiki gripped the back of the redhead’s plaid shirt, rearing his backwards. “You!”

“The hell, man!” The redhead sniped at him, dislodging him in a much nicer way than Daiki knew how, but that did not matter at the moment. Pushing the in pain Kise out of way, he stalked towards the redhead and ducking into his personal space, snarling.

“You fuckin’ smashed your fist in my face! Now look at it!”

The redhead peered at the bruise forming at his eye socket. “Yea, you didn’t look pretty before it either,” the man mocked.

Daiki gasped.

Behind them, Kise and Tetsu were snickering—or it was Kise snickering, and Tetsuya glancing away to stifle his laugh—and that pissed Daiki even further. _Who the hell does he think he is?_ Grabbing his shirt collar, Daiki snarled, “I’ll introduce you to a world of pain, you little fucker.”

The redhead scoffed, batting the hand surprisingly easily. He moved then, probably wanting to run away before Daiki handed him his ass, so he lunged right at the man’s back. As though guessing what his enraged neighbour wanted to do, the redhead sidestepped him, and watched with growing horror as Daiki sailed past him.

 

* * *

 

Daiki’s eyes widened as he teetered forward, vision swaying back and forth for a mere second before all thought only went to how close the stairs looked and how strong the wind felt as he whooshed downwards. The brief tugging at his pant was but an afterthought to shocked gasps and a loud yell. He thought he could hear his name being repeatedly strung into a long sentence, the rackety creaking of the 18-step steel staircase of the apartment complex like some cheap background music to his winded sprawl on the dirt ground and—

“…I’m sorry,” came the gruff sound of an apology Daiki did not see the reason for; it was, after all, his own doing that led him to fall face-first down the small flight of stairs. Even if he braced himself enough to not get hurt, he was still winded.

“What for?” He managed to grouse out, slowly pushing his torso up by the arms, he legs feeling like jelly.

“Um…” Kagami made his way to his front, squatting and scratching his cheek, sheepish. Umber eyes darted to the side, unable to face Daiki. “Er well, ya know,” he jerked a finger behind Daiki. “Your pants…”

It was only then that Daiki felt the brush of air on a part of his body that he had not felt before. Should not have felt at all, considering he had clothed that part of his body minutes prior to their altercation.

“You’re…kidding me…”

Kagami shook his head, and for once, Daiki hated that blush spreading across lightly tanned skin. Still scratching his cheek in sheepishness, the redhead continued, “Um, well, you see…”

Daiki flumped his face into the dirt. He did not want to know what else was wrong. “…What?”

“Er…Kise’s camera crew is still filming his live feed…” Daiki groaned, covering his head to block out all external stimuli, hoping his shame would reduce in that pitiful attempt, “and—”

“There’s more?!” He cried; he honest-to-God, cried.

“—Kuroko took a sharpie to your ass.”

Daiki held his breath.

“Do you—”

“No.”

The redhead hesitated. “You sur—”

“I said no,” Daiki snapped into the dirt. He has never tasted the substance before, but he could finally rule it out as the most disgusting thing that has passed his lips. At the moment, anything seemed better than being him. “Instead, tell me it’s just a recording, that they can edit—”

It took merely a shift of clothing—as thought the man turned to wordlessly question Kise and/or the TV-crew—before the gruffness dropped to a new level of gruff. “No.” Taking obvious pity on him, the redhead removed his plaid shirt and draped it on his exposed read end, and Daiki ground his forehead even more against the dirt, pride refusing to show his face to his audience.

It seemed the soundtrack to the end of his adult life was the raucous laughter of one Kise Ryōta (who was going to die very very shortly), until Tetsuya’s voice cut in: “Ah, the stroke on nudist got smudged. What a tragedy.”

The redhead huffed, holding in the laugh unsuccessfully. “It’s fine. You can still read it.”

“Hey, hey, Kise-kun,” someone Daiki did not recognise was calling the soon-to-die blond, “What does it say? I couldn’t read it fast enough.”

“Ah, that?” Kise’s voice was too loud. Daiki tried to cover his ears; the less he knew the more he could protect his pride; but Kise was too loud to block by mere human devices, “ _I’m a proud nudist, look!_ ”

What little humility Daiki thought the redhead had flew out the window. It sucked, though, that his laughing face was unbecomingly handsome. Hoping the Earth produced an instantaneous hole to bury himself in right about now, the only thought sitting side-by-side his shame was that unpreparedness of falling for the _chivalrous_ redhead. Quite literally.

And he _still_ did not know the idiot’s name.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author’s End Notes:**

I can’t recall if I’ve written any laundry episodes…but it feels like I have one too many of such ideas…

Oh well!

(I’m sorry there wasn’t actual AoKagaAo in this, but er, on the plus side, it was humorous enough?)


	11. Coward's Pluck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Taiga wants to end this farce and move on to bigger, better things. He is not a plaything, no matter how many times he has succumbed to Aomine’s debauched will. This time, things will be different. Or so he keeps telling himself.**

* * *

**Warning(s):**  

1) Alcoholic!Aomine; Going-through-the-motions!Kagami; Random Unnamed people mentioned as plot devices.

2) Mentions of substance abuse (alcohol); and a lot of drama.

3) But hopefully by the time it reaches the end, it goes to a happy place.

4) And while we’re at it, Possessive!Aomine or was it Aggressive!Aomine?

5) Still writing on the phone…sigh. 

 

* * *

  

Taiga is not surprised by the 3AM booty call that comes by his home that quiet Tuesday morning. What he is surprised about is that Aomine actually used the key this time.

"Hey, you lush," he greets, more because the other man's name has lost its purpose when he is so sloshed he cannot recall how he came by Taiga's apartment or why he got drunk in the first place. Aomine will not remember most of the incident and Taiga hates thinking the house visit is in the section where the dark skinned male cannot recount the events and is probably the prime reason he is gone come morning while Taiga hears nothing from said person later on. Instead, finding tact from the months of this behaviour of Aomine's, he calls Aomine's roommate—that male is so scared of him, Taiga does not have to do much but say 'Hey', and the spineless git spills the week's secrets. It's more information than he requires, but it helps put into perspective that Aomine functions very well under duress: assignments are submitted on time; quizzes are studied and aced for; lab slots are scheduled in a timely fashion and attended; and Aomine has time in between all this to take his flavour of the month for lunch.

Taiga is never the flavour.

Taiga will bash his brains in if Aomine ever decides that is the road he plans to take whatever it is the two of them were doing.

It makes sense, though, that Taiga does not concern himself with Aomine and his indiscretion to be faithful--they were not dating; they were not meeting up for any meal of the day; they do not spend weekends together; they do not catch an occasional game of ball; they do not even send each other greeting cards. Taiga can name each and every one who sends him a card for New Years, even if he can never recall the face that goes with the name, so sue him. He sometimes, with a little alcohol in his own system, double checks the pile just to make sure. He wonders who he is fooling.

So when Aomine comes like clockwork to his place (not on Mondays, because he is sleeping off the whole weekend of debauchery, but Tuesdays he has gotten into the gear of the week; Wednesday is work and lunch day; Thursday he had to buckle down for an invariable assignment due on Friday; and Friday could either mean he comes by before 12 or way early on Saturday, but Sunday he disappears off the face of the earth.), Taiga sighs, braces himself against the convenient wall to add dramatic flair to this scene that is his life, and since he is already trying for a new approach, he speaks softly.

It is not because his neighbours have warned him of his not-so-indoor-voice level.

"Don't come here when you're drunk..." When he planned and rehearsed it in his head, it did not hurt as much as actually saying it out loud.

In retaliation, Aomine innocently blinks, his eyelids fluttering slowly in its wake. Taiga wishes each flick brings him closer to awareness, and each time he gets involved with Aomine, things will change. But Taiga keeps receiving a fool's gold. "Why?" Aomine mutters, petulant, bracing himself on the same convenient wall Taiga was using for his dramatic pose.

"When you do this drunk...You're telling the other person you can't do it sober."

Taiga almost pats his back for the words of wisdom; where was it several months ago? Now he just waits for Aomine to try and smooth talk him out of dissuading from the scene-by-scene roll their well versed script goes by.

"No, no," Aomine starts, a large watery smile on his face, a mirage of his daytime grinning, a mockery that shows itself to appease Taiga. As if he needs it. "Ain't no need for liquid courage, my man."

Sighing, Taiga denies that; "Ain't your man, and you’re totally three sheets to the wind."

Aomine opened his mouth wind, sure to argue how drunk he was _not_ , when he paused. “Hey…what _does_ that mean?” He questioned in all seriousness. Taiga rolled his eyes, bringing an arm up to keep Aomine from falling on his face or better yet, on him. “Are we talkin’ ‘bout bed sheets on a clothesline? ‘cause that shit don’ even makes sense!”

“Clothes—no! It’s a sailing reference,” Taiga admonished before realising he was going to start a debate with someone just as drunk as a sailor would have been. He tried to remind himself that Aomine would not be able to reminisce Taiga’s absolute idiocy even if they do continue this line of conversation. “All I’ll do for you today is put you to bed, Aomine.”

Aomine leered, vicious. “O’ course, that’s where we’re goin’ Taiga!” He waggled his eyebrows at Taiga. “Get ready for som—”

“I meant, I’ll take you to bed to sleep. In the spare room,” Taiga added as they moved together down the passage and stopped before aforementioned spare room. “Here.”

“What?” Aomine’s happy countenance dropped to a low, unbelievable one. He glanced first at the closed spare bedroom’s door, shut tight as it usually was, and then towards Taiga. Since none of the lights besides the _genkan’s_ and his own bedroom were lit, Taiga could not decipher the look on the other’s face. The change of voice was the only indication that Aomine registered where he was going to be put up for the night, and that there would be no sex at all while he was drunk. So it was obvious that Taiga did not notice Aomine’s eyes narrowing. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I told you,” Taiga hissed, “If you’re going to be drunk, the only thing you are doing is sleeping it off.” He paused, fingers curling a tad too tightly around Aomine’s upper lithesome arm. “Talk to me in the morning if you dare to.” He figured the challenge would pass through one ear and out the next, so he shrugged at his own words.

“I asked you why? Got someone else,” the words were sneered, “Huh, Taiga? Someone else doing that tight ass of yours?”

Taiga scowled. “Shut up. You know that’s—ah, right, how would you know anything when you don’t even have the courage to stick around the next day?” Even though he could feel his lips skirting upwards, Taiga was not smiling. “Sorry, sorry. My bad.”

It was as though, then, that Aomine was as sober as the day he was born; he ripped his arm out of Taiga’s grasp and grabbed him in return instead, pushing him against the closed door of the spare room. “I asked,” the words were deceptively calm and level-headed, “if there was someone else.”

Keeping his breathing under control—Taiga could not afford to react to this man, he knew his resolve would break, and he knew he could not afford it—he returned softly, “And what’s it to you if there is?”

Aomine sucked in a deep breath, and without warning (or Taiga was not really expecting this), kissed the waking daylights out of the redhead. Already trying to slow down his erratic heart from earlier, Taiga was finding it difficult to utilise the air in his lungs, but then again, who was able to make full use of oxygen when they were being kissed to death? Since there was a first time for everything, Taiga gave in, opening his mouth, relaxing against the door behind him, and slid down completely. Aomine reached out, holding his up by the elbows, but slowly loosing strength himself, managed to somewhat get both of them to the floor without injury. They parted, suddenly, panting heavily; Taiga dropping his head backwards and staring at the ceiling, while Aomine bent forward to rest his forehead on Taiga’s chest.

It did not take long for Aomine to calm down enough to start moving again, leaning forward to place open-mouthed kisses on Taiga’s jaw and neck, hands becoming busy as they searched for leeway to Taiga’s skin, pushing the t-shirt the redhead wore away, fingers trailing and dipping into each crease of muscle available. Taiga did not stop him—he could not even if his mind told him it was the best decision to make—because the fire lighting up his skin would never be smote no matter how he tried to put it out. Aomine kept asking about another person; who was the idiot kidding? Taiga would never find someone who made him burn as hot as Aomine did, even drunk as he was.

Which reminded him…

“I’m going to strap you to the bed,” Taiga mumbled, in between Aomine’s indecisiveness of kissing his lips and licking his abdominal muscles.

“You can try,” Aomine mumbled into a taut stomach, dipping his tongue into Taiga’s navel before biting the upper rim of it. Taiga scowled, swatting at him. “Maybe you will succeed this time.”

“I’ll succeed,” was the vehement response, as thick fingers found Aomine’s nape hair, twirling short tufts around his fingertips, tugging lightly to direct the male’s mouth someone more productive. Aomine snorted, hands moving to start on Taiga’s sweatpants, tracing the band sitting snug around his hips. He went to make kiss marks at the edge, pleased to hear the hitched breathing of Taiga’s. “I bought leather cuffs that attach to the mattress, and I’ve been practicing.”

The mark he was working on started to bleed when Aomine heard that. “Yea? Into bondage now, Taiga?” He did not wait for the other to respond, licking aggressively at the new wound. “Who have you been practicing on?”

Taiga chuckled, breathily, palm warming the skin at the back of Aomine’s nape. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Aomine glanced up from his untying of the sweats, eyes locking on the hazy red staring down at him. There was both confidence and fright in those eyes, and Aomine did not know which one was the dominant force, which one he should be focusing on. “Oh, you’re damn right I would.” He immediately got onto his haunches, hauling Taiga towards him, and said, “Why don’t we take you to this bed that has those cuffs outfitted, huh? Show me what you’ve been practicing.”

Taiga licked his lips.

The sheen left behind on the supple skin and the soft glow permeating from the redhead’s room made Aomine lean forward and take those lips into another frenzied kiss.

“If you can’t keep me here until tomorrow morning, Taiga,” Aomine whispered against his lips, “All the alcohol I’ve been drinking would go to waste.”

And grinning magnanimously, Aomine carried Taiga enthusiastically towards the redhead’s bed, found the new addition to the framework, and made full use of said accessory.

Taiga would wish he had followed the age-old script that Aomine was being nice enough to follow for the sake of predictability and ease. In any case, Aomine was not playing as hard to get as Taiga thought he was, what with not even trying to stop Aomine from his obviously shoddy _infidelity_ schedule. Aomine would have to be stupid to not do what he did in broad daylight if he knew Taiga was watching—and reacting. He figured that in the process of killing his liver so that it gave Taiga a fighting chance would be easy, but then again, Aomine travelled all the way to Taiga’s apartment to dangle himself before the redhead.

Really, the redhead just did not learn after so many months of Aomine cutting off all the work for him; it just made sense for Taiga to pick up the slack while Aomine reaped some of the benefits of sampling earlier than necessary. After all, all work and no play made Aomine Daiki a dull and insufferable boy.

Ask Taiga; he would tell you all about it.

 

* * *

 

  **Author’s End Notes:** I am sorry! *runs away to hide*

I know I just started to get back, and I've been unnecessarily active in a short span...but better something than nothing, right?

And OMG it's been a while since I've done a proper AoKaga rather than my preferred KagaAo. Sorry, folks! X'(


	12. Contortion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **"Is there still something there?"**

* * *

 

**Author's note** : Hahaha ha. So I tried fluff. But...

But Aomine failed at it, okay??

(Kagami has...like a telepathic connection with him? Yea, let's go with that.)

 

* * *

 

"I-Itai!!" Daiki rushed headfirst into Taiga's back, ramming him against the hand railing of the staircase he was about to descend, effectively making him turn around to grasp Daiki's quaking body. "Oi, oi! Kagami!!!"

"W-What is it?" Taiga’s eyebrows shoot up, startled; the reprimand to be careful dissipating on his tongue.

Daiki ground his head further into Taiga's chest. "Something in my eye! Hurts! Stay still!"

Taiga blinked, a non sequitur if there ever was one, forcing him to struggle and bring Daiki's face to his own. Heedless to the increase of gawking around them, Taiga fought to open up the tearing eyes, fat liquid droplets clinging just as stubbornly to thick long eyelashes. Daiki remained poised in a boxer's position, peering as though if Taiga took one wrong move he would find himself supporting a broken, bleeding nose. And Taiga would not take the stance for granted.

"Lemme get it out, stupid," Taiga offered, an adulterated, winsome smile lighting his face, not that Daiki could appreciate it, blinded by the momentary pain.

"No! Hurts to open!" Daiki failed at pushing the bulkier male away. "Leave me be!" He snapped.

Taiga withdrew his hands from Daiki's face, watching as the dark skinned male furiously battered his eyelids, generating more and more of those clear rotund droplets. He visually chased one of them down the smooth curve of a cheek from a pronounced cheekbone, jumping softly from a clenched jaw.

Taiga knew he should not think it—Daiki had a bad habit of being able to read these thoughts of his—but the younger male was endearingly adorable at this moment in time.

And Taiga will take that to his grave, to never see the light of day. Ever.

As Daiki managed to do away with whatever it was that decided to take refuge in his eye, they continued back on their path to the subway. He tried to push it to the back of his mind, but Daiki was aggressively rubbing his face in the crook of his elbow. "You've got some really long lashes," even Taiga blinked at hearing his voice.

"What?" Daiki choked, freezing just shy of scrubbing a layer of facial skin away.

"How about we stop for a sec, and you can wash your face."

Again, surprised at him even thinking to suggest actions for the other prideful male to follow through, Taiga was flabbergasted when Daiki, grimacing, complied. Dumbly, Taiga watched the other take larger than usual strides, disappearing around the bend near the ticket turnstiles.

"Huh."

 

* * *

 

Daiki leaned unnecessarily close to the mirror spanning the whole length of the washroom.

He frowned, watching the furrows on his forehead crease, pushing his eyebrows close to his nose bridge, narrowing his blue eyes. Said eyes were rimmed red from his earlier unmanly performance, so he ignored their state on principle; he clung to that _uncultured brute, for fuck's sake_.

Said eyes also did not withdraw their previously reported long lashes no matter which position he turned his head and glared at them.

Daiki raised one hand to brush them lightly, gingerly feeling them flutter against the sensitive nerve endings of his fingertips. "Long eyelashes," he muttered to himself.

Gears slowly turned all through the ride together.

 

* * *

 

It might have been two hours later, thumbing through various image boards that he took preference over on Taiga’s classy tablet that Daiki realised he was alone in said male's living room. Spread out on his back, legs propped up on the backrest of the rather small sofa set, Daiki paused in net surfing to physically rub the fatigue off his eyes. For the second time in the day, Daiki brushed his lashes with the point of his fingertips.

And then remembering something, he grinned, resuming his surfing, legs vibrating as he waited for Taiga's return.

When the redhead did, bearing gifts in the form of sodas, Daiki gratefully received his wordlessly, watching Taiga brace himself before flopping completely into the little area not occupied by Daiki's legs. The snap and pop of the tab being flipped open was closely followed by the television being turned on; Daiki dropped the soda into his lap, performing a stomach crunch while sitting upwards. Taiga barely glanced at him from changing channels until Daiki's face was too close to ignore.

"Hmm?" Taiga's own deep red coloured eyelashes snapped up and down, blinking in confusion at Daiki, eyes slowly widening, irises moving outwards as his pupils first widen then narrow to take Daiki in full sight. Daiki appreciates that Taiga reacts to him, and his lips itch to grin unbearably wide. "Aomine?"

Daiki holds his chuckle to a low breathy one, ghosting Taiga's features as he nears the other male, using Taiga's upper arm as a gripping support for the awkward contortion he was currently in.

Taiga was not even tearing his eyes away either. Daiki internally cheered.

_Just a little more..._

And then, bending forward more, tilting his head at an angle, Daiki--

"Is there still something there?"

Daiki drew back. "What?"

Taiga cocked his head to one side, staring straight into Daiki's eyes, unnerving. "Your eyes...are they still bothering you?" And with a hesitant hand hovering near Daiki's forehead, brushing little stands of blue away, he confirmed, "You're blinking up a storm."

Daiki stopped breathing. Then, snatching his hand away, dropped back into his original position, face hidden behind Taiga's tablet. "It's nothing."

"You sure?"

Daiki frowned at the reflection of his face on the blank screen. "Yea."

Taiga let out a small, almost embarrassed, laugh. "I don't know why but, since this afternoon, I've been thinking about your eyes." Daiki tilted the tablet to his chest, looking at Taiga from over it. Taiga blushed slightly, looking at his knees, "And for a second there, I thought you were trying butterfly kisses...or something..." Taiga let loose another soft laugh, more self-deprecation than anything else, and Daiki covered his face with an arm.

"Oi," his voice was decisively muffled, calling for attention he could not face head on, "We can try, if that's what you want."

Daiki does not see Taiga's face in response to his suggestion, getting an armload of the other male, soft little fluttering against his chin causing him to purse his lips. Just as he opens his mouth to tell Taiga to allow him space, he feels the fluttering against his tingling flesh. As Taiga moved further up, dusting those soft, tickling kisses every which way he could, Daiki dropped his eyes closed and tilted closer too. The moment he could feel Taiga's breath on his face, he started to rapidly blink his own eyes, hoping his "really long lashes" did their work this time around.

“This is embarrassing,” Daiki mumbled into Taiga’s nearest cheek, eyelids fluttering briefly against the other’s temple, before he pops one eye open to stare at Taiga’s silhouette. He throws his arms around Taiga’s shoulders, drawing him closer, lips itching to just kiss and be kissed. “So embarrassing.”

Taiga merely laughs into Daiki’s collarbone, happy to receive all of Daiki’s embarrassing tender little butterfly kisses.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author’s End Note:** Wrote this last night when I was trying to sleep; then tried editing it in the morning while I was sneezing up a storm and scratching my eyes, trying being the operative word here.

Was a subtle _bisous de papillon_ idea from *shifty eyes* (you know who you are) which I just elaborated on rather pathetically!


	13. Of All the Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Daiki thinks Taiga complains just because he can and not because it really had anything to do with him. No, seriously. Couldn’t he take a joke…?**

 

* * *

 

**Author’s Note:** *covers face* It was a few days before Eid, and I saw the goat being led around.

It directly reminded me of an incident at work in Feb, and _voilà_!

No hope for me, I tell you…

This is just…a little something…of our idiot boyfriends being idiots. Well…bigger idiots, it would seem.

* * *

 

 

When he sees the figure ambling towards him, Taiga takes a step back in confusion, mouth unhinged, jaw uselessly dropped. The annoyed click of a tongue travelled the distance before he could even see the other person’s facial expression.

“Close your mouth, fool,” the late arrival spoke just as Taiga flailed his pointed finger behind at the trotting animal on a jewel-studded leash. “It’s not even a dog.”

“Of course it isn’t!” Taiga snapped, glaring. Aomine Daiki clicked his tongue again, turning to face the road, unconcerned of the stares he was receiving. It had stopped bothering him five second into accepting the task. “Any which way you look at it, you can see it is a sheep!”

A ticking eyebrow arched high on a dark forehead. The already disinterested quirked lips twitched downwards. “So what is the problem?” Daiki almost demanded, standing close to the garish gold-and-black horned-hat the animal wore, neck sporting a dull, rustic bell, expression bland. “Are you going to tell me you have a fear of sheep too?!”

Taiga looked on incredulous. “Are you telling me you got a sheep because I said no to a dog?!” the dull bell rang once as Daiki tightened his hold on the leash.

“What?!” This time, Daiki swivelled his head to face Taiga, not even bothering to look affronted at being accused of something as silly as getting a sheep for a pet. He glanced over his shoulder at the bored-looking sheep who was still mulching the paper it snagged from one of the curious gaggle of students, two blocks away. “I’m not so petty that I’ll get a _sheep_ to spite you!”

“See?” Taiga gloated, folding his arms across his broad chest smugly. “You _did_ do it to spite me.”

“Can we just get back?” Daiki hissed, the clear annoyance in his mood unrivalled to the anger he could feel steaming off his skin. The heat he was producing was keeping him warm in the chilliest time of day, produced by an emotion he has started to feel more and more the past few days when in the presence of one Kagami Taiga; that man surely knew how to keep a grudge. “I need to take the sheep back. He’s the only one dressed for the occasion.”

Which was true, looking at Taiga, who was skimpily dressed for the weather in track clothes, compared to the fluffy, overbearing in sight, wool still on the sheep, and even Daiki who had thrown an overcoat on top of his tracksuit. The tense atmosphere between the two was unpalatable and each one blamed the other for the cause of it. ‘It’ had started, inanely, over the course winter and Taiga’s fast road to hibernation; he had unwittingly put on weight. Daiki could tell when they held each other but did not think it would affect the _boke’s_ play. So when Daiki hung in the air over the bright red hoop longer than Taiga, changes were made to the redhead’s conditioning program. Daiki had even joked about borrowing Tetsuya Nigou to help Taiga do his roadwork properly, only to be smacked in the face for his consideration with a full knuckled fist.

That was a week ago, but Daiki’s face was still sporting the green-tinged purple bruise caused by an overly emotional lover. Numerous ice-packs and ‘my bad’ confessions were paltry in conjecture to what Taiga had ruined for Daiki: he was the face of the team and now, now he was the butt of all jokes. Which was why, several days later, he was bumped down to the chore of taking the New Lunar Year animal for its walk before the celebrations. “Year of the Sheep my ass,” he had spitefully spat the words at the corner of the training grounds. And it was just Daiki’s luck to see a face he was sourly trying not to see for the same few days since the ‘fight’.

“Why aren’t you training?” Taiga was asking, leading the way as he was wont to do. Daiki would have sighed, tugging the studded leash of the sheep along with him, but remained reticent. So Taiga kept talking. “There’s only three more weeks before we start team training, you know. You should make the most of your alone time, _Aomine-kun_.”

Daiki scowled. Or what passed as a scowl because his jaw still ached and he was doing things with half-measures.

“I’m sure you enjoy yourself the most those times, _Aomine-kun_ ,” Taiga was going on, head tossed back as he laughed fraudulently. Daiki does not know who Taiga was fooling but he could smell the liar from far away. “Ne, _Aomine-kun_? Like yourself so much that if you could, you would even do yo—WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!”

Daiki snaps his head back in time to witness Taiga’s flight off the ground, hands crossed behind him, holding his ass.

“Daiki your fuckin’ sheep just bit me!!” Taiga yelled, voice going up on the scale of ‘Officially Traumatised’. Before Daiki could comment, he watched with his mouth agape as the animal nosed Taiga in the back again, this time with its lips curled back and surprisingly pearly white teeth parted, inching closer and closer with precision. Wide-eyed, Daiki tugged the animal away from the redhead’s ass. “See!!! He almost did it again!!!”

In the time it would have taken for Daiki to comment, calm down Taiga, and restrain the devious animal, the absurdity of the situation lit up in Daiki’s eyes and he could not stop laughing. And laughed so much that he released the studded leash, slackening the restraint he had on the animal, only to allow for the resulting chaos.

Ducking its head a fraction lower than preciously, the animal charged straight at Taiga’s crotch, who had, by that time, turned to glare and shout murder at Daiki and his burdened pet. It did not take long for the man to cry out in pain, instinctively reaching for its head with both of his wide hands, grabbing at the garish headgear it had sported. What he caught caused him to grumble and curse even louder.

All the while, knight in shining armour that he was not to Taiga, Daiki remained holding his stomach in tears.

“Fucking stop laughing and hold this motherfucker down!” Taiga roared, his voice carrying in the late morning, the chill atmosphere heating up with his anger. Daiki tried to control himself, knowing Taiga was safe from the animal abuse, and the thought just caused him to lose focus again; he started howling. “Idiot! This isn’t a freaking sheep!” Taiga pulled at the headgear, tugging aggressively without caring, showing what the tasteless dressing was hiding and making the animal look innocent to passers-by. “It’s a fucking _blood-seeking_ _ram_!”

“OMG, that’s even better!!” Daiki hollered, scuffling backwards and away from the murderous pair struggling to outdo the other. Never in his life would he have thought he would get to see Taiga wrestle with a ram, and now that he was seeing just that…Daiki was recording this. “Tetsu would love this!”

His phone was easily pulled out, the camera app easily selected, thumb niftily swiping to video mode. Grinning from ear to ear, Daiki goaded, “Taiga, you handsome stud, smile for the camera!”

“Daiki you fucking loser—!!”

 

ﾍ(╬ﾟ益ﾟ)ﾉ┌┛Σ(ﾉ´ω`)ﾉ 

 

“—and now you need a place to stay?” Tetsuya was not impressed.

“Yea, but not for long,” Daiki said, cringing away from where Takao Kazunari was administrating first aid on the second (and maybe there was a third, Daiki could not tell) bruise Taiga had inflicted on his face. Takao, who had his cheeks puffed up, lips pursed, with suspicious noises spilling out of his vibrating body. Daiki ignored Takao; he figured being the self-appointed best friend of Midorima said something of one’s mental health, so he could not seriously begrudge the shorter man anything. As long as he was good to Tetsu, Daiki did not care about the carrots he kept as friends. “Taiga will come around soon. He’s just being a girl about this.”

Tetsuya, on the other hand, had looked way past annoyed and inviting. “Aomine-kun,” the shorter man let out with a sigh and shake of his head, “You left him to deal with a rampaging ram who eventually railroaded him to the next town. The police picked him up and he spent hours convincing them that he was sane, and at the same time, what did you do?” Daiki opened his mouth, but Tetsuya literally punched him to it first. “You took a video and virally sent it out to not only his friends, but his teammates, and then the manager saw, and then the league authorities saw it, and now… I don’t think Kagami-kun will take you back, lest allow you to sleep on the couch.”

Daiki frowned. “Hey now, it wasn’t that bad. He’s lucky that he wasn’t hurt. Everything got cleared up, right?” He grinned disarmingly and in the same breath hissed when Takao applied a little too much pressure as he handed him the pseudo ice-pack. Takao grinned ferociously back at him, unrepentant.

“Aomine-kun,” Tetsuya decreed, voice of No Objection filtering out, “maybe you should try your luck with Kise-kun.” And proceeded to throw Daiki out of their house.

Daiki paused, thinking, wondering if he should even bother with the trek to Kanagawa. Then thought better of it, knowing Kise was shaking up with that stiff senpai of his.

“Stupid Taiga,” he mumbled, proceeding to find the nearest hotel, “Couldn’t he take a joke?!”

 

○|￣|＿

 

**Author’s Note:** Every time I hear something about the lunar year, I remember the “sheep” my restaurant’s CEO found to play mascot (like seriously, what was he thinking??). Only it wasn’t a sheep, it was a ram with a headdress and it covered the beautifully large coiled horns it sported on its head. We didn’t have customers for that week, and he wondered why. Foolish man.

 

Oh, and about Kuroko and Takao...Idk what to say, but...lately, I can't seem to get enough of them!!! (I think I've spoiled myself rotten for this couple!)

 

(I'm not even going to make excuses for this story, though. Idk what came over me.)


	14. Humour Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Daiki had been real studious for some reason, but Taiga honestly wasn’t expecting this.**

 

* * *

**  
AoKaga Month Prompt:** Joke

**Author’s note:** Sorry, this was a little too quickly put together, so mistakes galore!!!

 I didn’t expect to finish this on the 1st itself, so was aiming it for the 2nd…and what do you know…single-hand typing isn’t that bad. Annoying, but not bad…

Happy Birthday, Taiga Kagami!!! XD

 

* * *

 

“When is he free again?” Daiki had asked as they vigorously wiped off the sweat, unable to cool down because they had overspent their time on the indoor basketball court. The past two weeks, the weather had been all over the place, from warm and humid to sweltering hot and humid. Daiki was a summer child and he could not stand how hot it had been the past few days, propositioning with theatrics that they book an indoor court for their usual weekend meet.

Taiga had agreed; it sounded cooler than any of the other ideas Daiki had previously begged for. With abject hate he remembered the homemade _kakigōri_ (shaved ice) that managed to land everywhere instead of their mouths. _Well_ , Taiga thought, grabbing his bag and bouncing one of the basketballs they had tagged along, _it was a very_ different _experience in bed._

“Eh, third week of August. Business is still slow around then, and he promised to take the week off to meet you.” Taiga tried to stare into Daiki’s face, watching for any facial discrepancies to signal how nervous the other was in meeting his father. Granted, the two of them would have to travel all the way to the States, and instead of being irritant and worried about how everything would settle into place—spending money, tickets, approval, the whole nine yards—Daiki had actually grinned and said not to worry about anything.

That just made Taiga worry even more. As the days counted down, he was nervously checking his emails and numerously asking his father if the elder was still going to be free to see Daiki, only to be brushed off as a worrywart.

“I’m not,” Taiga mumbled half-heartedly aloud. Daiki glanced at him, eyebrows raised. Shaking his head, he added, “Nothing. C’mon, let’s go.”

Daiki quietly followed tune.

Fifteen minutes saw them taking a seat in a relatively busy family restaurant. There were no Maji Burger joints on this street, and starving after the heavy workout they just finished, Taiga was up for anything. Usually he got to choose: Daiki was only happy not to pay for the ‘extravagant’ (as the _aho_ liked to call it) amount Taiga ate, so Daiki virtually (Taiga ignored most of the complaints through sheer will and the refusal for a romp in the bed later) never complained which food joint they landed in to satisfy Taiga’s black hole he called a stomach.

Immediately the two got comfortable—Taiga thanked their server for the menus, flipping it open just as fast, kinetic vision taking in the list in quick automation; Daiki pulled out his little notebook and a pen, mumbling as he started to voice out the words he had jotted down there previously. When the dazed server left with Taiga’s order, the redhead settled down to turn his attention at his partner.

“Hey, Daiki,” Taiga reached one hand over the table top, tapping his fingertips near Daiki’s loosely laid arm, before poking it. Daiki returned the attention after a brief flick of his eyes at the offending finger, quickly turning his hand to grasp the digit. Taiga made a face, tugging his hand back, but Daiki didn’t leave his hand. He spared a small toothed smile at the other, waggling his eyebrows in his ‘I won again’ fashion.

_So childish_ , Taiga snorted, wanting to turn his face away, but remembered that he was trying to converse with said child. “How’s the learning going?”

Daiki screwed up his smile at that. The innocent looking expression morphed to one that resembled a devil; so concentrated the features were, one would think Daiki was learning a forgotten worldly, ancient subject. “I’m getting there.”

“Oh yea?” Taiga tried not to laugh. Daiki’s ‘I’m getting there’ was code for ‘How the fuck am I supposed to figure this out, damn it?’, but the fact that he had yet to give up learning was praise-worthy. “Need any help?”

“Shut it, you cheeky bastard,” Daiki tightened his hold on Taiga’s finger, warningly. Taiga laughed. “If I need any help from a foreigner, I know where to come.”

“Sure, sure,” Taiga raised his free arm in defence, hoping to show he was aiming at pacification, but Daiki knew better. “Just saying if you want me to check if you’re saying it correctly…”

Daiki glared. “Spoiling for a fight, huh?” He demanded.

Taiga laughed again. He glanced down at where their hands were connected; subconsciously they had manoeuvred their fingers until they were casually holding hands on the table. Neither cared what others thought—both were comfortable enough with themselves and each other that no one else mattered. “C’mon,” he goaded, inching closer, “I won’t laugh even if you were terrible. Just say something.”

Daiki frowned; all the lines Taiga wished never graced his forehead were in full affect now. He can recall the number of children Daiki had unwittingly scared into peeing their pants when he glanced at them, so scared they were, they remained rooted, shaking. Not that Taiga was any better, Daiki never failed to inform.

“C’mon,” Taiga tried again.

Sighing like a mighty warrior laying to rest, Daiki glanced at his notebook that was still propped up away from prying eyes. The resolute look resumed on the other’s face, watering down Taiga’s smile. _Is he…_

“Okay,” Daiki amended. “Maybe I can tell you some jokes I’ve been trying.”

“Jokes?” Taiga perked up. “That’s pretty high level, Daiki.”

The other grinned, sly. A shiver passed down Taiga’s spine, but the air conditioning in the restaurant was still not cooling their skin for that to happen. A light sheen of sweat could be seen, and a few stray beads of the salty body fluid made their way past t-shirt collars.

And then Daiki spoke. “Knock knock.”

Taiga’s stiff neck and shoulders instantly lost power causing him to slump down. “Knock knock jokes…weren’t what I was expecting.”

Daiki’s grin broadened and didn’t disappear. Taiga was almost hoping he got offended enough to snap back.

This time, Taiga sighed. “Okay, okay. Who’s there?”

“Marry,” the deviousness of the smile edged out, looking a shade paler than its usual glory.

“Marry who?” Taiga imitated the word, wondering if Daiki even got the pronunciation right.

The hand holding Taiga’s tightened, feeling a tad too humid than normal. “Marry me.”

Taiga blinked. He opened his mouth, ready to say something back, but the first set of dishes were brought to their table. The busy servers set up their table, studiously ignoring the held hands, and the awkward silence that consumed them all.

“Kidding,” Daiki mulched out, in between teeth and a forced smile, jiggling their joint hands.

“…You did not just do that!” Taiga cried out, huffing, looking away in seemingly mock annoyance, a slow and sad smile on his lips. The two shared a hearty laugh, one ignoring his sweating palms, and the other ignoring his beating heart.

 

* * *

 

He picked it up on the fourth ring. “Hey!”

Daiki greeted back with an annoyed huff. “Now you’re stuck with the lame one,” he warned. “I’m on my way to you, and if you were a little quicker, you could have heard my awesome singing.”

Taiga laughed, mocking cringing aloud on the line. “No one wants to hear you sing on their birthday! Keep your lips sealed!” Calming down, he asked, “So? What was the lame one? You sure that it wasn’t the actual greeting you prepared?!”

“No way! I’ve got class!” There were honking cars and people gaggle in the background, but Taiga could hear each and every syllable of Daiki’s words when he started with: “Knock knock!”

“Hey now! This again?” Daiki’s snickering was unmistakable. “Who’s there?” Taiga demanded.

“Abby,” the snickering continued. Just hearing it made Taiga’s lips twitch. So he asked who Abby was. “Abby birthday to you!”

Groaning, Taiga covered his eyes with his free hand. “I wonder how long you waited to say that…how long will it take for you to get here and me to kick your ass?”

“Never!” Daiki crowed. “Even if it’s your birthday, I’d never let you win easily!” there was some shuffling on the line, and suddenly Daiki was holding his breath. “Taiga?”

“Hm?”

“Ah…” Daiki breathed into the phone heavily—as though he ran a marathon in the brief moment he was quiet—then sighed. “I’ll be there in a few.”

“Hm?” Taiga glanced at the phone as though it would provide all the answers in the universe. “Um...Daiki?”

“Well, see you!” And Daiki hung up.

“Weird guy…”

 

* * *

 

Taiga wiped off his hands on the tea towel before he spread the cloth on the oven handle. The cake he had baked for his own birthday was finally out and cooling on the wire-wrack, and he probably had enough time to really dress it up if he felt like it. Eyeing the white chocolate cake from where it sat on the counter, Taiga ran through many simulations of how he wanted to decorate the unadulterated dessert, disturbed by the sharp shrill of the intercom.

“Hello?” He questioned, peering at the small screen. A looming figure wearing a dark cap with a large visor blocked most of the view. “Hello~?” He repeated. _Better not be a creep._

“Eh, sorry,” the figure looked into the camera and Daiki’s face filled the screen. “Didn’t realise I was already here.”

Taiga chuckled, “Loser. Come on up.” He pressed the open button, watched as Daiki hesitatingly moved to the door and passed through before the screen went off. “Hm?” Shaking his head, he sped first to the main door, held it ajar with the mounted doorstopper, then rushed back into the kitchen. Here he took his time, pulling out a chilled bottle of water and setting it in easy grabbing distance for when Daiki made his way in.

Except, Daiki didn’t come in. He knocked on the door.

“Door’s open!” Taiga called out.

The knock repeated. “Eh? Didn’t it stay open?” He wondered, walking back to the _genkan_ only to see the doorstopper was doing its designated job and holding the door slightly open. “Daiki, come in, _aho_.”

Through the sliver of the opening, Taiga saw Daiki shift from side to side, but made no move to actually enter the house. Taiga slowly walked forward, worried, hand reaching out to push the door open. However, Daiki held it firm, unmoving.

He knocked, again. “Humour me,” he pled softly.

Taiga swallowed the seemingly coagulating spittle in his mouth. “Okay.” Daiki knocked again. “Who’s there?”

“Marry,” Daiki’s voice sounded far away instead of the mere three feet that currently separated them. Though on hearing the answer, Taiga clicked his tongue and turned around.

“Not this again…” He grumbled.

“Taiga, please.”

Taiga refused to answer. The rush he had felt when Daiki had first proposed, only for the idiot to have cold feet and withdraw it…that feeling wasn’t easily re-writable.

“Fine then,” Daiki moved then, holding his head low, “I’ll just leave.”

Though the feelings were not superimposable, knowing that Daiki was walking away—felt more like running away again—that the unbearable gripping in his chest wouldn’t let him leave without fighting back. So Taiga did what his panicked brain was telling him to resort to.

“Knock knock,” Taiga rushed, almost pathetic in his attempt to sound less frantic and more sincere, door banging against Daiki’s back. For a few painful seconds, the other concentrated on the numbing the shock of the door slamming into him, before the words registered to him.

So Daiki paused, hesitating. “…Who’s there?”

“Neil.”

One second became two, three, then five; “Neil who?”

Taking a huge breath, chest puffed out, Daiki watched as Taiga tried to calm himself down. _Just what is he…_ “Neil down and make it official, _aho_.”

Unable to stop himself from what the surge of emotions did to him, Daiki reached out and grabbed Taiga into a stronger embrace than he thought was possible. Taiga chortled, grabbing handfuls of Daiki’s racer back tank, trying to bring him as near as possible, as close as possible, all the while not realising he was tearing, eyes clamped shut. “I told you to kneel, you stupid bastard.”

Daiki breathed in Taiga’s scent, long and deep, filling his lungs. With his lips against hot skin and a beating pulse, he smiled, “I thought it was a joke?”

“Not in this lifetime,” but if anyone asked Taiga, he really didn’t care for that.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author’s End Notes:** Eh…so my friends and me were bombarded by _knock knock_ jokes two nights ago at a bar by some drunk, and I was so not going to do anything like _this_ with it, seriously! Honestly! But things happened and I didn’t have time to do my planned “Hello” prompt piece. Oh well.

Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!! 


	15. Better Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Where Taiga the supermodel is introduced to Daiki the hitman. Only, she doesn't know it.**

* * *

**Author’s Note:** Eh, something small. And differently styled compared to usual. And extremely late! X’( [And yes I know it’s improbable…but!!! I couldn’t help it…] Also! Beware!! Genderbent supermodels. OwO

**AoKaga Month Prompt:** Hello

* * *

It was, he supposed, a rather funny thing.

An almost normal job couldn’t have left him so bloody, and so dragged down.

What was it he called it? _‘Meeting your ends’? ‘Tying your ends together’?_ He shrugged, not remembering and extracting a moan of displeasure from him. And yet, he felt almost calm, serene. _Weird._.

He wondered if this _was_ going to be the last time. _Hm, it would be rather interesting_ , he had thought, _to die in full glory_.

Gazing across his present surroundings _and present…er, companions_ , he shook his head.

“No, I don’t think so,” he grunted, trying to move slowly as to not injure himself further. He clutched at the bleeding wound, which by the pain meant a flesh wound, but dire a case to need immediate attention; he’d been shot before, and it never hurt with such a dull, stoic pain than before. _Numbing then_ , he guessed, leaning onto the rifle, supporting most of his weight on it, and tried to edge away from the grimly wall that he had sagged onto.

With uttermost pain and care, he moved forward, starting a bloody trail from where he had stopped. _Soon_ , he thought bitterly, he’d be a goner in a very, very filthy place. _So much for glory_.

Just as he was heading out to the very end of the alley, shouts from the other end called to his notice. He darted into the shadows and leaned once again against the grunge-covered wall, watching to see if the noise-makers would go away. Ostensibly, just for the sake of rubbing his bad luck in his face, they didn’t appear to do so. To him, it looked like it was a possible boyfriend-girlfriend fight, and he couldn’t believe he was going to die watching this, of all things considered.

“Should have stayed in Japan,” he murmured when the blond girl struggled out of the stronghold of the boy and started running towards his general direction, the boy in pursuit.

“Leave me alone! Bastard! I’ll report you to the police! Lemme alone!” the blond girl screamed frantically when she was caught again.

“Why would you want to do that?” The boy murmured in a decidedly evil fashion.

“Because you won’t rape another girl ever again! Miss!!” His eyes widened, the pain in his side forgotten. So he was looking at a possible rape. Didn’t suit him very well.

They struggled for a while, as long as he could keep track, he bringing the sniper to his side and stepping away from the wall to find a steady stand on his feet. Once achieved, he said in a low cold tone, “Move away.” They both snapped their heads towards him, and he smirked. The boy didn’t move away from her though, his dark eyes narrowing.

“Who are you? What are you doing over there?” He shook his head.

“I ask the questions, I tell you what to do.” He replied in a well versed phrase of his, bringing the sniper into view. “Or shall I just kill you?”

The boy laughed and the girl paled. “You won’t shoot. Thing doesn’t even look real.” 

He twitched, thumbing his black beauty and whispering soft comfort in Japanese.

Within the span of one millisecond to the next, the boy was on the dirt-packed ground, howling like a dog with the mad disease. Unfortunately for him, the girl fainted right on top of him, and he cried out louder. It made him frown with distaste, then with worry when another running figure came to join the two on the floor. _What’s the hell…? Can’t I even die without an interfering audience?_ And with that thought, he remembered his wound and hissed in pain “ _Chikusou_ ”, before promptly fainting.

The last image he saw was the grime covered floor of his death bed.

* * *

Ryō Kise was not expecting her saviour to just drop on his face after shooting her attacker, but drop he did, right at her feet. The sequence of events that followed, had no words to describe it, and even if asked, Ryō would unwittingly sit with her mouth agape.

Σ(゜ロ゜;)

ヽ(｀Д´)ノ　(д´ノ)　ヽ(　　　)ノ　(ヽ´△) ヽ(´△`)ﾉ

( ╯°□°)╯ **︵** ︻┻┳══━一

* * *

Taiga swept every floor surface imaginable for her glasses, groaning on all fours for this action, but could not feel their presence anywhere. It was always an issue sleeping anywhere besides her bed since the automatic removal and placement of said object was at a habitual distance her hand knew. Anywhere else, and she’d be calling her dad at all hours of the day to beg for a new pair. _Makes it worse ever since I started living away from him_ , and forgoing her search, she dusted her knees and hands, finding her way to the bathroom.

After a painful ordeal of cleaning herself up the best way she knew how, yawning, she marched into the kitchen. Determined to finish having one proper meal of the day before she starved herself, Taiga could map out every inch of the kitchen without her glasses. Of course, she had to pause when the apartment door opened, but she disregarded it and continued on her picking. _Was take-out really all there was?_ But she was too lazy to make herself something nutritious, and this gave her an excuse to kill Ryō later, whenever she saw her again. _Oh, it must be her at the door._

“You’re officially dead after this, Kise. Remember no junk food under this roof?” She called out.

“Erm, yea, sorry ‘bout that. Er, by the way, Taiga, I’ve brought in a guest. Mind him for me?”

Taiga frowned, turned around with the fork still in her mouth, before forgetting her manners. “Oh…okay. Hey.” She said to the tall man, who didn’t look the type to follow Kise anywhere at all, regardless of free bunking space; he didn’t even appear to be a fan of the model. And he looked even older than _her_!

When the stranger didn’t respond, Kise jerked his arm a little, muttering something like ‘Remember what we taught you? Say ‘Hello’.’ The tanned man, with deep blue hair falling into his equally blue eyes, quirked his mouth. He raised his left hand and said a simple, flat “Hello.”

And it made her want to laugh.

“My name’s Taiga Kagami…” she prompted. The man frowned and looked down at Kise, who was hovering at his elbow.

“Name, Ryō Kise, remember?” Kise made signs with her hands. Taiga couldn’t see anything without her glasses anyway.

“Ah,” the man said, as if with recognition. Andréa couldn’t really care less if he gave his name or not. “Aomine Daiki.”

She frowned. _Japanese?_ She put it forward, and if she had been wearing her glasses, she would have seen that slight stiffening of the man’s neck. “Hey, Aomine. Would you like to eat something?” Pleasantries she was good at, now all she had to do was push him into the hall and make him watch some movies. _Piece of cake._

“Em, yea, Taiga, about that,” Kise started, “He doesn’t understand much English and can’t speak much,” and then the blond supermodel ended.

_Hmm…?_ “What can he say then?”

Kise looked as if she wanted to faint, but held firmly onto the man. “You…don’t want to know.”

Taiga looked at the two of them before laughing. “Oh c’mon, why can’t I get a laugh out of this?” The two before her remained blurry in her vision, but she could just feel the tension in the air. “Kise?”

Then Kise sighed. “I’ve warned you, Taiga,” she pitifully said, then, turning to the tall handsome stranger in their kitchen, said, “Aomine, English?”

“I ask the questions, I tell you what to do.” Came a decisive tone, a deep sultry voice that made Taiga shiver, forcing her to bare her neck in the process. The man bent forward a little, blue eyes looking sharper than necessary without her glasses. A lone pointed finger came from her deep jugular notch to trail symmetrically over her hyoid bone and stop at her chin. “Or shall I just kill you?”

_…What the…_ “You’re right, Kise,” Taiga staggered away from the finger, leaving the man’s hand hovering in the air for but a second before he took it back, “He was better off stopping at ‘Hello’.”

What Taiga didn’t see, though, was the predatory lick of lips Aomine invested in.

* * *

**Author's note:** Don't ask me. IDK. TuT


	16. Won't You Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **“Hanamiya-senpai,” his eye twitched, “Please don’t be angry with me? All I really wanted, was to spend Christmas with you.” And as though cued to play, the lyrics pierced through the metaphorical romantic setting. Not knowing what to say to that, his brain computed its new fad: his eye twitched again.**

* * *

 

**Character(s)/Pairing(s):** Hanamiya Makoto; Furuhashi Kōjirō; and, Original Female Character.

**Author's Note:** Someone reminded me of this piece I did for KnB Secret Santa (that was some weird shuffling okay...don't ask me how I got this.) and I realized I never put it up. More to the fact that IDEK what is happening to it...but. Yea.

**Warning(s):**  A little more haphazard in flow than I thought it would be. Out of character? Let’s go with Out of Character to be safe. Supposed to have some humour. ‘Supposed’ being the operative word, that is. (The requester said, " _NSFW is ok, just nothing angsty or bloody._ " :/ Hanamiya is involved. How am I supposed to do that?)

**Disclaimer(s):** At the end. 

* * *

 

 

Makoto likes spending hours upon hours reading away the time teachers thought they were giving them on catching up on their studies just before exams, as though anyone in his class really need those extra minutes to do what they were already good at. Yet, glancing to the furiously scribbling seatmate to his right, Makoto could fathom how no one in his class wanted to lose to him. Chances being slimmer as they come when dealing with him, he resumed his stance, only the addition of a smirk on his lips causing the increase in the feverish writing beside him.

Amused by his own thoughts of his classmates never being able to reach near his shoulders, he continues to read the novel that was starting to hit all the early predictions he made about the storyline. Nearing the end of the current chapter, he pauses, sighs and closes his eyes. “This is becoming boring,” he mumbles, shutting the paperback. Laying it flat on the table, he taps the surface. Predicting a long study period, Makoto stood up and picked up the novel.

He saunters with hunched shoulders, book tucked at his side with the inside of his elbow, heading straight through the empty corridors to the well-equipped library on the other end of the large school complex. The teacher—young, homey, with glasses—on duty smiled warmly at him, which he returned, a nauseated grimace tugging at the edge of his smile, and spent a few moments replacing the book a respectable distance away from the door. The teacher nodded and hummed at a low frequency, careful eyes watching the elimination process Makoto underwent to select his new reading prospect.

“I’ll be taking this,” he held up the book, worn leather bind but still pristine in its handling. Long fingers ran its length, appreciative.

“Go ahead, Hanamiya-kun,” the teacher sent him a dazzling smile. Unable to stand keeping a simple smile on his face, he about-turns and heads for a seat further away from the teacher’s docking space; it should give him a wide berth for reducing any inane interaction.

In the span of the next few minutes, Makoto feared that his neck muscles were going to spasm into inflammation if the teacher would only just stop staring, and after one mistaken look up, Makoto curled his shoulders further than he usually does to hang his head. The opening of the door, however, made him look up again. This time, a sincere smile crossed his face, soon souring at the appearance of what he would deem an idiotic female hanging off the strong arm of one Furuhashi Kōjirō. Said male looked unbothered, walking steadily towards the teacher, dropping his burden onto the flat surface between them. Furuhashi glanced over at his companion, dulled eyes looking  _different_.

Makoto took in the female. The girl was, if he had to label her, someone Furuhashi was prone to giving the time of day to. Dark long hair left loose to flow on her back, a fringe that skirted perfectly naturally-shaped eyebrows that arched over dark eyes framed by a full plume of lashes beating softly on sharp cheekbones, confident small smile stretched her glossed lips, the girl—a junior—was simpering under Furuhashi’s dead gaze.

A simmering Makoto always felt when he saw team-centred groups or Kiyoshi Teppei, was filling inside his stomach, rising up to his chest. Mouth already moving before his thoughts caught up to him, a low sharp clicking of his tongue pierced the air.

Before Furuhashi noticed Makoto and made a move towards him with the junior, he edged out of his seat, grimacing all the while, and lightly stormed out of the library. He did not notice the stare at the back of his head.

 

* * *

 

The sensation of dirt and cold rain water under his feet annoyed him, and the sun despite the rain clouds beating against his back annoyed him too, and the constant jeering of his classmates annoyed him even further. But what really beleaguered him was the quiet, no-argument attitude of the youth beside him. It had already been forty-three minutes, and counting, since they had been forced to do this new form of torture to run what seemed like a marathon during an obvious bad weather day.

Frankly, he did not need it.

Makoto also did not need the constant silent support from Furuhashi following at his elbow as though being out of his field of vision but still in his near vicinity was really helping him figure out who he should eat for dinner. As if the weather was not enough, on re-entering the school grounds, Makoto’s mood soured even further when he saw the simpering fool that had put him in his current horrible mood in the first place.

“Tsk,” he clicked his tongue, breathing heavy, hands on his hips. His shoulders were still curved, hiding his body, and the dead stare on the back of his head was making him nauseous. If swatting Furuhashi would deal with his annoyance, he would have swivelled like a drama queen and swatted away. He was already dealing with the repercussions from his confused emotions and Furuhashi (as well as those pesky emotions) was something he was unwilling to deal with at the moment. “I’m heading inside.”

Making his way to the doors, the never-ending cool gaze playing backseat driver to his mood, Makoto skulked to his locker, pulling his gym shirt off and chucking it. There were still two weeks before winter break started, and he would be damned—well, more damned—if he did not sort things out. After all, there should be a logical explanation to what was happening.

_…shouldn’t there?_

* * *

 

A budding new leaf tore at the joint when the door was slammed opened. Kōjirō stared at it for a few more seconds before he looked over his shoulder. Whatever expression he wore was ignored by the other occupant sauntering inside, hands buried artfully in his pockets.

“I think…we have a problem.” Hara popped the ever-present chewing gum, the sheer picture of the complete opposite to his statement. “Or more like, you might have a problem.”

Kōjirō’s eyes flickered to the plant.

“It’s Hanamiya…”

Sighing, Kōjirō’s hand hesitated in keeping the watering can down on a level surface, mourned the death of the baby leaf, before giving the unwelcomed visitor to the room his undivided attention. His posture, however, said the opposite.

“And?”

A quirky smile. A popped bubble. “Well,” Hara looked uncomfortable, rubbing the back of his neck, “You know that girl with those horrible legs you’ve been hanging around with lately?”

Kōjirō paused. “You mean the girl who has been hanging onto me?”

“I know better girls with legs so long and beautiful, this one can hardly stand beside them in comparison. I’m guessing you aren’t around her for her legs, though,” Hara shrugged, and Kōjirō would have been privy to waggling eyebrows if he ever knew of their existence on Hara’s forehead.

“I thank you for your easily ignored and absolutely undesirable thoughts,” he broke before Hara continued down that tangent, settling the can down, “And so? What was it?”

“She’s with Hanamiya at the moment…”

It did not take long after, when Hara ambled the way to Hanamiya, somewhere outside in the cold grounds of the courtyard, Kōjirō took in the stiff way their Coach-cum-Captain’s shoulders were held as the junior in question was talking to him, eyes batting in coyness, a dainty nail-job hand covering her smirking lips.

It did not take a genius to understand what was going on there.

Highly amused, Kōjirō glanced over at Hara. “Leave this to me.”

Hara shrugged again, the smile on his face as clear as the skies were now, clouds threatening to tumble over and spill out their freezing contents.

“Sure, whatever you say,” mock-saluting him, Hara turned to leave. “Just don’t tease Hana-chan too much okay?” Kōjirō glared at the coy look Hara threw over his shoulder at him, “He doesn’t do well with sharing.”

Looking back at the awkward couple the two were forming in the secluded courtyard, Kōjirō knew all too well about Hanamiya’s allergies to sharing what he thought was his.

* * *

 

Taupe eyes twitched aggressively for the fourth time in the span of twelve minutes. The skin around the occipital openings felt strained, as though it would tear if the involuntary reflexive motions did not cease.

That, and Hara’s incessant snickering.

“What are you talking about?” He asked, because clearly, those in six degrees of separation were on the descent to idiocy, and the uplifting twitching, pursed lips did not warrant any of his  _amicable_  thoughts for them.

“Everyone knows you are close to the basketball members, and I only knew Furuhashi-kun,” she was saying, twirling a small section of her hair with equally small fingers, glancing up at him through those rows of eyelashes he wanted to take a rusted machete at, “And I know how terrible it is to make use of your friend like this, senpai, but—” here she did the contemptible motions Makoto himself has made use of, butter-melting smile stretching pitiably on those glossed lips “—I don’t think I can go through this Christmas without you, Hanamiya-senpai! I love you a lot!”

Makoto decided to be truthful. With a definite and superior version of the butter-melting smile, he chanted musically, “You’re pissing me off.”

Furuhashi was the first to retort—as usual, Makoto rolls his eyes when he hears the soft snort—“That’s your default expression these days.”

Hara cracks his wobbling lips apart, the laugh bubbling up instantly being clamped as he hacked out a rough cough, hiding behind a semi-closed fist.

In his irritation, all Makoto could vent out was through physical. Aggressive eye-twitching aside, the girl cowering behind her hand was starting to grate his nerves. The clap of thunder overhead made the girl jump a few centimetres.  

“Furuhashi, some taste you have,” he mangled out from a constricting throat. He raised a hand to said appendage, checking for swelling, while his body went on autopilot. “Get this disgusting girl away from me.” He ignored the frown on Furuhashi’s face, turning to head back inside before a downpour followed the thunder. Brushing against Furuhashi’s shoulder first, glaring heatedly at the still snickering Hara, he was almost to the administrative building entrance (the closest) before he felt more than heard the girl following him.

“Hanamiya-senpai,” his eye twitched, “Please don’t be angry with me? All I really wanted, was to spend Christmas with you.” And as though cued to play, a song he has been hearing in the streets of town for the past few weeks, pierced through the metaphorical festive romantic setting. Not knowing what to say to that, his brain computed its new vogue: his eye twitched again.

“I’m leaving or my book will get wet,” shoulders curling over his exposed neck, Makoto left, a flash of lightening and the clapping of thunder at his heels.

* * *

 

_Snap!_

Furuhashi sighed. “I’m not even going to ask what has got you into the mood you are in.”

Makoto growled low in his throat. Furuhashi had followed him back inside after a few minutes longer than he would have liked, and now, sitting at the last desk in his abandoned classroom, watching the white edges of the cumulonimbus stark against the dark grey and blue of its body filling up the late afternoon sky. “If you aren’t, then stop talking.”

The other agreed silently by dropping the first item he had on hand on the table. “And so? What do you want from me?”

The item was a small box, neatly wrapped in festive wrapper, and a bow that gave away the obvious owner of the giver. Clicking his tongue in tandem, Makoto snapped his fingers again, pushing the gift off the side of the table until it tumbled over out of sight. “Nothing,” he muttered, keeping his voice low, still hunched over the book he was supposedly reading, one hand holding the page while the other remained suspended on the pivot of his elbow, fingers twitching as it retracted away. Before he realised it, he was snapping them again.

Large warm fingers wrapped around his fingers, startling him. Taupe eyes were left to snap up at the deadened blacks looking down at him.

Makoto stuttered. “What is it? Stop bothering me,” he pulled his hand back, leaning away from the table so as to put more space in between the other boy and him.

Furuhashi sighed, and Makoto watched, the boy acting as though Atlas had requested him to take over the celestial spheres for a day and be in his shoes for a thousand miles, figuratively speaking. His fingers twitched, aching to snap, but he could still feel Furuhashi’s hands around them and hesitated in using them. Instead, he clicked his tongue.

In the seconds from his sigh and Makoto’s tut-tutting, Furuhashi was already on Makots’s side of the table, leaning against the edge and looking down at his bent head. The unnerving stare from days now was something Makoto had yet to get used to. No matter how many times he was subjected to it, the tingles running across his skin as though trying to silently torture him, was unbecoming. It was one reason he was glad Furuhashi and him were split in different classes, and during lunch Makoto could make up numerous reasons that were sound and pliable and  _were definitely not excuses_.

It was also another reason he stayed up at night hoping that the ridiculous black heart he had was not crumbling its surface to show the deep colours of the sickness he surely keeps scoffing about its existence with every cell of his body. That, or soon his mind would reject the organ completely. Hopefully soon, because Makoto could not remain unaffected to a mere stare from someone who he saw as beneath his esteemed self. And—he choked on air, the tilting curve of amusement sharp and bare on Furuhashi’s face, making Makoto want to strangle the other.

“You…never are really honest to anybody but your enemies,” Furuhashi lightly commented, speaking as though the storm outside was a backdrop to a romantic serenade to what was to come.

Makoto tore his eyes away to the side, a scoff barely passing audible levels. “I don’t know wh—”

He could feel when Furuhashi moved to hover over his body, and from the corner of his eye, saw one arm brace itself on the table. As the thought registered of what the other male was doing, Makoto was completely trapped by the Furuhashi’s other arm at the back of his chair.

“Furu—”

“Hanamiya,” Furuhashi murmured, a sharp contrast to the smile on his lips, eyelids hiding the empty pools that Makoto used to snicker at when their opponents quivered uneasily when they were stared at by the male. “Hanamiya stop thinking about everything else.”

Makoto’s mouth twitched. Eyes drawing to the side, he dropped his voice too. “Instead of what?”

The shivers he was fretting over were back again, Furuhashi’s breath ghosting against the side of his face, warm and welcoming unlike the cold seeping through the window he was being pressed against. “Instead of me, of course.” Unable to react to the conceited statement, Furuhashi nosed his way further into Makoto’s personal bubble and took over what he would like to dub as his unresponsive lips.

Makoto did not need to see Furuhashi’s face. Through the kiss they shared, he could already tell the other boy was feeling victorious.

Allowing the kiss to deepen, dropping his head back, Makoto could hear that same song reaching the apex. But it did not matter—the tic-induced arm rose high over a dark head, holding Furuhashi closer, the other soon following after its grip slackened around the open book—surprisingly enough, he got what he wanted just in time for Christmas.

s way further into Makoto’s personal bubble and took over what he would like to dub as his unresponsive lips.

Makoto did not need to see Furuhashi’s face. Through the kiss they shared, he could already tell the other boy was feeling victorious.

Allowing the kiss to deepen, dropping his head back, Makoto could hear that same song reaching the apex. But it did not matter—the tic-induced arm rose high over a dark head, holding Furuhashi closer, the other soon following after its grip slackened around the open book—surprisingly enough, he got what he wanted just in time for Christmas.

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Note:**

OMG was this difficult. OTL.

First and foremost— **disclaimers:**  Title comes from Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’ (Yes. I did it.), [CREAM’s cover of said song (because how could I not?)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF9rsIslT8E), and some random ideas from Character Bible and  _pueppiesblog(.tumblr.com--check her out!!! She does awesome art for AoKagaAo both NSFW and fluffy goodness!)_  helped shape this.

I started it as soon as I got the Secret Santa notification—with the ending first of course—but through all the nonsense the season had to offer before the deadline date, I finished it late.

So yes…apologies for the… _very apparent disconnection and no actual plot of this piece T___T_

Going back to what I know best.

(But it really won't hurt to hear how this went...the requester, in the end, never said anything TuT)


	17. Arranged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Taiga’s never been a very filial son, but having a set of values he needs to fulfil, he’s going to cause someone very dear to him undue pain. He just hopes he can figure out a way not to.**

* * *

 

“ _O-miai?!_ ”

Taiga tried not to swallow his tongue before he said “Aa,” and continued to furiously pay attention to the characters on the screen, trying (but failing) to get back into the movie they had been watching before the call came. A call from his father.

“Eh?”

And Aomine’s distracted answers—while pleasant to know he cared enough to be affected by it—was nerving. Taiga himself did not know what to do.

“Yea.”

“That doesn’t answer anything!!” The other snapped, reaching for the remote control and switching the television off with otherwise exaggerated gusto. The clattering of the remote went unnoticed in the face of blazing blue eyes.

Taiga shrugged, now not having anywhere to train his eyes and pretend the conversation between his father and him was something natural, and likewise pretend that the two of them were not discussing the arranged meeting. Had he been alone in the apartment, Taiga would have arrogantly scoffed it off, believing his father a lonely old man who recently saw children and wanted grandchildren himself. _Not happening in this lifetime, Oyaji_.

Surprising himself for a second, it hurt to think his father would not have the joys of seeing Taiga’s children only because—he quickly glanced to the side—his life partner was a male. A very non-womb carrying male.

Taiga sighed internally.

“Well?!”

And now he had to appease the man beside him otherwise he would never hear the end of it.  “It’s just a meeting. Nothing’s going to happen. I’ve already informed my dad I’ll be turning her down.”

Aomine bristled. The arm he had thrown over the sofa back was now next to Taiga’s shoulder, clenching it tightly. His body was stiff, leaning forward into Taiga’s space, a leg drawn up tight against his chest. Taiga wondered if Aomine realised that; he would always bring up his leg in this defensive position over the left side of his chest as though protecting it from whatever onslaught he thought he was going to face. “Then why go at all?” The hand not making tears into the sofa was now snapped into Taiga’s face. He eyed it, cautious, to see if Aomine would resort to stabbing his eyes out. “You can very well send her a message or call her or whatever it is you have to do to deny it now itself. Don’t waste your time,” but Taiga heard the unsaid words clearly enough.

“I’m doing it for dad. He hardly asks me for things,” Taiga withheld why he was still going: “ _Just meet her, Taiga. You can never know; she might be totally your type!”_ Considering she had a pair of milk jugs and not flat pecs; a crevice of an unknown depth and not hairy balls; Taiga figured she was so far away from his type that it was laughable. He turned to see Aomine huffing to one side, trying to look less agitated—his eyes were like cats, pinched and glaring; his mouth cranked downwards—and thought, _and she isn’t this stupid, violent guy._

Aomine suddenly got up on the guise of a water run. Joints protesting the stiff movements, Taiga watched as Aomine struggled to not bang items around in the kitchen and not slam the fridge door close on his way out. It was probably also the first time he’d seen Aomine actually fill a glass rather than grab the bottle and unleashed his selfish way of life at its opening. Taiga hid a smile when Aomine looked over his shoulder, asking if he would like some.

All the thoughts in his head faded away; Aomine was _asking_ him. “Sure,” he let pass through a dried mouth. A few moments and he was quirking a small smile at the glass he was offered, but it remained clutched in his hand for a while. The condensation on its surface made his hand wet, slow trails from top to the bottom jumped off the glass and pooled silently on the wooden floor. He admired the sloppy patterns as the minutes ticked by.

“Daiki,” Taiga hardly used the other’s name, not ignoring how Aomine used ‘Taiga’ like a tag or leash when he felt like showing off ( _to whom_ , Taiga often wondered, pushed to the extreme end of the karaoke box they were in, other people they were friends with in struggling to converse with Taiga over a bored and miffed Aomine). “I’m going to the _miai_.”

Aomine, who had been studiously drinking his water, regurgitated the liquid back into the glass. This time, without hesitancy, he smacked the glass onto the coffee table, Taiga stiffening in wait for the surface to crack; _fool, that’s glass too!_

“Don’t get me wrong,” Taiga rushed before he could say anything. “I’m really doing this for dad. But on the other hand I think it’s time.” He chuckled in the face of Aomine’s terrified expression. _What is going on in his head?_ “We should arrange to meet my dad soon, right?”

Aomine’s breath hitched.

“I think he had a right to figure out where he’s going to get his grandchildren from,” Taiga added conversationally, glancing at his own water glass. Draining it completely, he was extremely glad he’d been putting on the abused coffee table before Aomine attacked him. Long sinew arms corded like a snake around his neck and shoulders. Taiga laughed, recognising what the action was meant to be, the sound soon turning silent as he felt his own smile stretch wide on his face; Aomine was crying into his shoulder. “Hey now…”

“Dumbass,” Aomine choked out. “Asshole. Bastard. Idiot.” Aomine continued his stream of curses and all Taiga could do was laugh into the embrace. “Dumbass.”

“You said that already,” he informed, because he was nice like that. The arms around him tightened, becoming less welcomed, but Taiga stayed put. “So since I’m all those words you just said,” Taiga teased, “I’ll leave the preparations to meeting my dad all to you!”

Aomine drew back to smack Taiga’s face, only for Taiga to duck away and off the sofa. “Come back here, you ingrate!”

“Uh-huh,” Taiga staggered backwards, humour still lingering on his lips, “I’ve got a date to prepare for!”

Aomine lunged over the coffee table and flew into Taiga’s waiting arms. “Let’s see how much she likes her dates looking like a red panda!”

“Oi!”

* * *

 

**Author’s End Notes:**

Long story short, I was backing up my documents, and while trying to weed things out, I found some complete/incomplete works that needed airing out.

(And yes, summary was misleading, now that I look at it. Oh well. XD)

Hope you enjoyed this! :)


	18. Can't Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Taiga would like to inform all those in his sphere that he was no masochist.**

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

It feels like AGES, though I have been doing a little writing here and there (well...it doesn't count if it isn't posted, right? SIgh...)

But! Here's a little interaction. About KagaAoKaga.

~~And let's not forget my horrible onesided!MidoKaga...~~

**Warning(s):** Some (?) physical altercations. Of sorts.

* * *

 

 

 

Anyone listening in on their arguments or seeing them the day after such heated expletive verbal fights would think two things: they had a dysfunctional abusive relationship and that _Taiga was a masochist_.  
  
Which, rubbing the balm into his jaw for the mean right hook he had been graced, he almost believed. Of course, in the other perspective, _almost_ being the operative word.  
  
Taiga would like to inform all those in his sphere that he was no masochist and he had no tendency that involved pain as a medium (he had still not gotten completely over the dog trauma for crying out loud), and his significant other was clearly role-playing what Gestalt would have crowed (in the audience seat, cheering heartily stuffing his face otherwise with popcorn) as some gamut of S&M.  
  
What he would like, however, was for people to realise this century (particularly this month in time for the long weekend) that Taiga was fucking good in bed and he should not be privy to right hooks just because it peeved the other. Every time there was this amazingly loving, sexually-heightened mood, Aomine Daiki the biggest baby born in their Chinese zodiac year, had to draw back with, "I'll let you do it if you let me hit you once."  
  
The first time it had passed those thin, mildly smirking lips, Taiga had grinned back, predatory, scoffing at the idea. But he had—stupidly, now that he thought back—agreed with a cock of his head only to later roll back with the force of the fist in his face, eyes wide in shock, surprise stalling his heart. At the same time he was blinking out the tears of pain, Taiga jerked back into his original position, being pulled back because Aomine was eating his face with such aggressiveness, Taiga was beyond confused with the mixed signals he just got.  
  
And well, continued to receive for the next few months.  
  
Now, clearly being on the dumber side of average (he never claimed he was smarter than anyone including his eleven-year-old cousin), it took him a while to bring it up. And to Midorima of all imbeciles to boot.  
  
The look on the carrot was enough to bury Taiga’s own head in the ground. But he was not an ostrich, even if he had a better derrière than said dumb flightless bird. And let’s not forget, less feathers.  
  
"I cannot believe you-nanodayo,” was the starting self-imposed speech that was sure to ramble into the eternity of ' _You will forever be an idiot on my books even if you somehow aced Intro to Anthro last semester_ '; it also appeared that using the rolling pencil for all the quizzes and the finals were going to remain a sour point with Midorima until the other could one-up Taiga later on in their University days. Unfortunately, that was the only class they would (ever, if Taiga could help it) have together considering their course streams.  
  
"You don’t have to, just, I don't know, give me a way—heck, _any way_ —to get him to stop resorting to violence every time I suggest intimate interactions." Taiga rubbed his faced tiredly, missing the cocking of an eyebrow on Midorima's face. Not that he needed to see it, because the taller man definitely made it known with his next words.  
  
"Big words you're using there, Kagami," he quipped, snobbish, pushing up his frames. "And thank you for thoroughly disgusting me."  
  
Scowling, he figured he could rub it in further with, "And where do you think babies come from, _Dr._ Midorima?"

“Definitely not from Aomine’s anus,” and Taiga, sniping words stuck in his throat for a brief second too long, laughed uproariously at the unusually placed humour from Midorima. As he quietened down, gasping for the air he was depriving his lungs with, Taiga recalled why he had sort Midorima of all people to have this conversation with. Despite all the misgivings they held for each other, Midorima actually listened to whatever nonsense Taiga thought to spout out at him, and for once (because he was never saying this again), Taiga grinned at the taller male.

“Thanks man,” with his eyes scrunched shut as he smiled, he missed the first expression flitting onto Midorima’s face. Midorima scoffed, left hand rushing up quickly to displace the sunlight off his glasses as he kept fixing its position on his nose.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about-nodayo,” Taiga grinned into the stiff set of shoulders and his good mood carried on for the rest of their time together.  


* * *

 

Taiga wished his good mood had remained, or that Midorima was still around to grip at, with, to, because—glaring heatedly at Aomine who was scowling something fierce, fisted arm stretched out—because he was losing his cool real fast.  
  
"Bastard!!! Stop prancing about like you're the _only_ one in who’s in love!!"  
  
The words he had been rambling with tumbled to a stop just inside his wide open mouth and Taiga could not breathe for the next few seconds.  
  
Aomine continued, wiping his mouth with the long sleeves of his woollen sweater covering long fingers, embarrassed, glancing at the floor. Slightly heaving, Aomine near stuttered the rest of his upheaval with: “Every time, every time you open your mouth and you insinuate that we should have s-sex,” here Aomine paused to swallow spit, as though his throat dried out, resuming with a harsher tone and flushed face, “it has to be the way you want. You never ask me what I want to do. If I—” Aomine’s blues are coal black now “—want to do _you_.”

Taiga remained as he was; leaning away, hand on his bruising jaw (sure to follow last week’s colouring scheme, no doubt), eyes wide. “What…?”

“You heard me!” Aomine snapped. “Don’t make me repeat such words!”

If Taiga really wanted to know, he thought to himself, all he had to do was throw a glance at the passers-by doing a very bad impression of not paying attention to their free-for-all argument. He wisely kept the quip to himself and struggled to verbalise his next few, rushed thoughts.

“…You didn’t seem…eager…to do _me_ ,” Taiga tries to be calm. Inside, he is effervescing like a shaken _Ramune_ bottle, marble at the top waiting to pop out instead of being subdued inside. Just the thought of the _Ramune_ being spilt all over, on Aomine’s body, on his, allowing for it to be licked off…Taiga licked his lips, phantom fingers in his mouth, being looked down from lust-hazed blue eyes and that snobby slender nose, and Taiga is waiting for Aomine to make his move. Being done by Aomine? He’d take it.

“What are you talking about?” Aomine huffed, arms quickly being brought across his chest, looking more like he was hugging himself than trying to appear in control. “As if you gave me any space to _seem_ eager.”

Now Taiga knows Aomine is lying. He lets the accusation slide, deciding to close the gap between them, and agrees a 135% to what he says next. “I don’t mind you leading, you know.” With a sharp grin, and what he hopes is a sexy feral gaze, he adds, “It sounds positively hot, you doing me.”

Aomine shudders in place. There is a brief stillness in the air. Taiga can taste the trepidation, and then Aomine is grabbing him by his wrist and literally dragging him on his stomach to wherever the hell the other thinks he wants to do Taiga.

There really no words to describe neither the action nor what came after when Aomine got his hands on a willing Taiga.

 

* * *

 

Shintarō’s eyebrows took a flight off his forehead when Kagami grins aggressively across the library table he was seated at. The painful looking bruise on the redhead’s face was turning yellow, so it meant that Aomine managed to get one right hook before the weekend started—not that Shintarō expected anything less from that barbaric man—but the pleased look was not comforting. The clenching of his abdominal muscles wasn’t given heed to as that was the usual occurrence whenever Kagami came about, utilising the full glow of the two Power Forwards’ trysts to blind him. Knowing that Kagami didn’t care whether they had a filthy conversation in the hushed silence of the medical section of their University library, Shintarō prepared himself, letting his book fall shut softly on his thumb.

“Was the canary as yellow as the bruise on your jaw?” Shintarō managed, pleased when Kagami’s eyes lightened at the words.

Kagami leaned further in, shoulders framing his jaw and his head cocked a little to the right, his perfectly set teeth illuminating with an artificial white light. Shintarō tried to pay attention to anything but the swirling in his chest. “You bet it was.”

Shintarō narrowed his eyes. “I’m sensing something more- _nodayo_.”

Kagami’s grin turned from angelic to devilish in the span of 0.0000001 second. “Aomine wanted to top—” Shintarō grimaced at the knowledge, as usual, “—but a few minutes in, he couldn’t keep track, and demanded I do my share of the work, which meant—” He didn’t let Kagami finish, slapping a nearby notebook onto the other’s face. Kagami merely pushed it away, showing the victorious haughty expression for what it was worth, and all Shintarō could do was shake his head, blushing as red as his friend’s hair.

With a hand covering his face, Shintarō muttered out a pained, “Really can’t believe you-nodayo.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:** Don't ask me what I was doing. But I was doing it T___T I've been writing so much MidoKagaMido this month, that I just!!! Had to!!! I'm sorry. OTL.

Reviews? Comments? Some author-bashing? (I would technically deserve it at this point...)

 

And I always forget disclaimers. **_Characters belong to Tadatoshi Fujimaki-sensei!_**


	19. After All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Even after death, these old men act like children.**

* * *

**Author’s Note:** IDEK what I was going for. Something light?

* * *

 

 

"No!!"

 

The scream could have woken up the dead from miles away, but the only one near him was the redhead. Or a man who _used_ to be a redhead, as he recalled from when his memory was stellar.

 

Now his memory was not so stellar, only he knows he hates what he sees when he is staring down from the heavens to the idiots on ground.

 

"What are you doing?!"

 

"Can you not be so whiningly loud so early in the morning?" The once-redhead said, rubbing the nearest ear receiving the torture. "And it's not like they can hear you."

 

Daiki snapped his neck—something he would not have been able to do before his death without causing a trip to the hospital—and glared. "That doesn't mean I'm going to sit here quietly and watch my grandchild make the biggest mistake in his life!"

 

Kagami glanced first at said grandson, then at Daiki. "I think you're wrong about that." Glaring down his old nose, arms clenched tightly across his chest, he announced, "It's probably the first great thing he's done, getting with MY grandson."

 

Daiki blew a gasket. In the process, he bellowed, "Why aren't you against this?!”

 

Kagami sniffed, turning away as though to ignore Daiki. “They look good together.”

 

To enforce his point, Daiki waved wildly with long shrivelled up bony arms, spittle flying out of a decrepit, enraged mouth, “They fucking even _look_ like us!!”

 

Kagami nodded as one would a petulant child. “That’s why,” he intoned, slowly, a smirk on his crinkly lips, eyes twinkling, and Daiki could almost read the ‘ _that’s exactly why, you idiot’_ in the other’s expression, “They look good together.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Author's End Note:** This was a pretty old piece I dug up from all my random writings...needed airing, I suppose. I was looking at the other work that I know I should be typing up (Expensive Chocolates, Engulf, yada yada yada) but that's more work than I can bring myself to do. Maybe soon.

 

Hope this made you smile at least! :)


	20. Many and More

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **He walks in a blur in a town he should know. As he feels more and more disconnected, his feet stop short, numb.**
> 
> **“What, finally got bored of the countryside?”**
> 
> **He glances over his shoulder unconsciously, and tries hard not to let the smile on his face show.**

* * *

 

**Author’s Note:** So…after college AU? What? It could be canon, you can never know…

 

* * *

 

 

There had been an unsettling feeling since he had woken up—rather forcibly and without his consent—that found itself a home deep in his belly. At first, he brushed it off as hunger pangs (he had gone to sleep without eating), and now, exiting the house with a wholesome breakfast courtesy of his exuberant mother, Daiki clenched a fist against twitching abdominal muscles.

 

Satsuki would kill him if he was sick before the playing season started.

 

By the time he reaches the main street, Daiki is already mulling on where his feet were taking him. On such an _auspicious_ day, here he was, without a goal, without company, just him and his memories of what the town he had grown up had been like compared to the listless afterimage of the place it was now. The train line he takes is a short affair he doesn’t remember, and he finds himself in the bustle of a hub he used to come to what felt like such a long time ago.

 

“How many years…” Daiki couldn’t answer his own question. He walks in a blur in a shopping district he should know. There are shops he used to frequent for clothes, and a block from here there was an awesome arcade. Somewhere behind all the boutiques were the food vendors and a lone ramen gourmet in between them. He slows down when he see the electronic shop he had replaced his phone display screen at just before leaving some months back, and see a dozen more of his vacantly phased face staring back at him. He isn’t surprised at it, gazing right into the camera placed to entice the crowd to stop and stare, but what used to make him scoff and laugh now does nothing for him. As he feels more and more disconnected, his feet stop short, numb.

 

“What, finally got bored of the countryside?”

 

He glances over his shoulder unconsciously, and tries hard not to let the smile on his face show.

 

There is a tall stocky male walking to him, a smug grin on his face, red hair cropped short on his head. He is wearing sweats, something that should have looked sloppy, made him look, for lack of a better word, good. Vibrant. There.

 

“Shut up,” Daiki remarks, turning back. “You’re ruining the mood.”

 

Taiga glances at the TV display of Daiki’s face. “Oh, sorry. Forgot you had your narcissistic breaks in your schedule. Nice way to indulge, though. Do carry on,” Taiga laughs when Daiki glares at him, but the two end up walking side-by-side without pause. “When did you get back?”

 

“Yesterday,” Daiki mumbles unhappily, but his heart was pounding a ridiculous amount. He was a professional athlete, for crying out loud; he couldn’t be tired already!

 

Taiga nods. “So, no off-season practice?”

 

“I don’t recall. There was something about it in a week or something,” Daiki shrugs, not wanting to talk about it. “You?” He decided to ask when they walked silently for too long.

 

Taiga also shrugs, and this was when Daiki noticed his burden. _Grocery run?_ He admired the strain of muscles as they flexed, holding the multitudes of bags effortlessly. “Gym maintenance, so we’re off this week.”

 

Daiki scoffs. “You guys have another stadium, don’t you? And three outdoor courts.” With a rancorous grin, he added, “Lazy.”

 

Taiga easily sticks out his tongue, unfazed. “We’ve a drama- sorry, beauty queen on roster. He refuses to play under the sun and then we have Midorima-teme who has a schedule to keep to, so the manager let us off.”

 

The tone the other uses, the comfortable way he says that name— _Midorima-teme_ , he spits—makes the hair on his skin prickle. “I thought Midorima was the drama—sorry, Beauty Queen.” Here Taiga laughs long.

 

“Nah…this one is young. Just came on board as point guard, but was originally trying for shooting guard. After our continuous bad luck with point guards, we just let them run all over us, I guess. He’s not too bad—” He pauses, as though remembering, “He likes your plays though.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Yea, tell me about it. He complains a lot about how you shouldn’t be a power forward but a shooting guard. Pisses the fuck out of Midorima.”

 

“Ohh?” Daiki grinned. He was starting to like the sound of the Beauty Queen. “Maybe we should take him off your hands; we could use a new shooting guard.”

 

Taiga laughed, a short sound that was very familiar; a brush off. “Midorima-teme is _way_ better.” Daiki's cheek twitched.

 

He really hated when Taiga spoke of the tall shooting guard, smiles and nickname and all. Since the conversation was running stale, Daiki turned to look forward, easily walking through the sparsely populated footpath. Taiga remained at ease near his elbow, the smile not leaving his face, content to just walk aimlessly despite being burdened by his groceries.

 

_Want a hand with that_ , Daiki wanted to ask, but the words never left him. He twisted his mouth and furrowed his eyebrows, Taiga unawares of the turmoil he was causing him. He licked his lips, burrowing his curled fists even deeper into his pants. For some unfathomable reason, he sniped out a, “Then maybe we’ll just take Midorima.”

 

Now Taiga laughed, throwing his head back unreserved, arms struggling to cross against his stomach. “No way, you don’t even like him enough to be on the same team!” Taiga’s mouth was still moving, turning to face him, but stalled. “Hey, hey,” a hand reached towards him, groceries in a double layer of bags swishing. “Care to help me a little?”

 

Daiki wordlessly took the bags, but didn’t stop his grumbles from being heard. Taiga laughed again.

 

It was an unusual sound.

 

It was a sound, Daiki trails after the redhead who started to talk about some inane thing or the other _not about Midorima_ , that had been missing from the streets he doesn’t recognise anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite having no appetite from the previous day, the amounts Taiga cooked and served made his previously ripped abdomen stick out like a vicious beer belly. Taiga, as usual, looked the same, shovelling on autopilot the remaining food, and a distinct thought about _doesn’t he understand what leftovers are_ gets pushed to the back of his mind.

 

Taiga glances up mid chew then places his utensils back on his plate and sighs. “Okay, okay. Just wait a few.”

 

Daiki can feel his eyebrows rise. “What? Why?”

 

Taiga shrugs, getting up from where he had plopped himself on the floor, and leisurely sauntered back into his kitchen, away from the glorious frontal breeze of the air conditioning. Beads of sweat have already started to show their paths, trailing down sun bronzed skin. Daiki’s throat is parched; the glass near his arm is empty and he finds himself willing it to fill up with water, not once taking his eyes off Taiga. Taiga, who is humming softly to himself, bending a little as he digs into the fridge, a horizontal strip across his spin flashing Daiki.

 

Daiki has that craving again, like he is hungry and starving mad, but one free hand is patting the swell of his full gut.

 

“Here,” Taiga calls out before he moves, and when Daiki blinks away from the man’s face to what was being offered, his head jerks back with a crick. Taiga laughs, again, and Daiki swears the other has been too happy since they met up a few hours back, and it was almost unnatural. But Taiga’s laugh is warm and full, and it makes Daiki feel as though he is filled with cotton balls with nowhere to go—the butterflies had died years ago.

 

And then, as if Taiga couldn’t do anything more surprising, he starts to sing, genially raising his voice and Daiki can feel his face heat up.

 

“Stop it,” he whines softly, without anger, “I’m too old for this.”

 

Again, he is laughing. Daiki’s breath is stuck somewhere, on another plane of existence, and maybe he has already died and gone to heaven. Taiga single-handedly clears the table before Daiki, placing the homemade chocolate-looking cake in its wake, nudging him. “What are you saying?” Taiga quips. “Weren’t you complaining last year that no one gave you cake?” And proceeds to make Daiki even more embarrassed, the imitation of said conversation with all the whines and sniffles and fake crying bleating out of pleased lips. “So…here’s some cake this year,” Taiga ends, fisted hands on his hips.

 

Daiki is for sure blushing at this point, arm raised to clench his nape tightly with shaking fingers. He curls them into short hair wet from cold sweat. “The song was unnecessary,” he tries to dissuade, something to focus on, because he knows his cheeks are hurting not because he has eaten so much, “Heck even a kiss would have been fine,” he goes on to say, trying to brush off his own embarrassment, before realising what he says. He bites his lower lip shut, takes the proffered knife, and cuts out a slice, all the while willing down the dread and thanking Taiga for the thought.

 

And Daiki should have known—should have known he wasn’t as suave as he thought he was from high school and college—because Taiga smoothly bats the knife away, picks the cut slice, and holding it near hostage, says, “Well, happy birthday, regardless,” and leans over to kiss him.

 

It takes more than a minute to realise that after the smooth operator’s tongue infiltration, the cool sensation of the chocolate mousse cake is now coating every surface of his mouth palette.

 

With wide eyes, Daiki stammers out, “Did you just—”

 

“Wishing you many, many more of the same, Daiki,” Taiga licks the remains of the mousse off his fingers, staring straight down at Daiki. Not letting the moment go— _it wasn’t a dream, was it?_ —he reaches up to Taiga’s nape and digs in.

 

As an afterthought, Daiki wishes himself the same, indulging in more and more of the same kisses that Taiga feels necessary to gift him this year.

 

* * *

 

**Author’s Note:** Eh…okay. I don’t know. Let’s pretend it made sense, okay? Tried for fluff and all that. Hope it passes as “fluff and all that”. OTL

 

And I’m sorry for Midorima!! I honestly always believe that even if Midorima goes on to be a doctor, he and Kagami are more likely to be in a team—reluctantly—than anybody else. I don’t know why (and no, not because I unconsciously ship MidoKaga). m(--.--)m m(__.__)m

 


	21. The (Strut) of Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **There was a checklist for this. At least, he is sure there was a checklist for things like this. No one would blame him for making sure and following through…would they?**

* * *

 

**Author’s Notes:**

No words. I have no words for this.

However, this is a light little thing to make you smile.

~~I think.~~

* * *

 

_Dark blue button down shirt with Oxford collar?_

The material felt good on his naked skin. That had been the first thought when he slipped the cool material onto his shoulders, button up the front and smoothening it out after. It was imperative to have the same look so that people would notice. Otherwise, all his planning was going down the drain! _Check!_ He decided, running to the door.

_Vanilla almond scented shampoo?_

He snapped a few strands of hair off his head, but couldn’t smell anything from those measly filaments, so he shrugged. He did remember smelling the bottle before using, only later checking the label out when he had seen the body wash to make sure he was using the right products. Marginally satisfied, he shrugged, grinning. _Check!_

_Cool cucumber body wash?_

He sniffed his wrist, the only available space exposed for any kind of sniff-test, mind reeling on the fact that the smell was in cacophony to his hair. But that didn’t really matter now did it? Not to him, and not now at least. _Check!_

Snug brown shoes that he would never buy in this lifetime?

Here, he paused. The shoes looked good. And expensive. What were the chances of their owner getting so mad at him that he would want nothing to do with him be, was a thought he replayed different scenarios for, but none seemed to really click. He wiggled his toes in the shoes, tapped his heels one at a time to make sure they were slid on right, and figured he could use them as an excuse to drop by later. Maybe another round would be forthcoming. At this, the grin resurfaced on his face, unbidden. _Check!_

As he dropped his arm onto the door handle, pushing the door open, he halted abruptly and let the door close again. _Khaki cargo pants just a shy centimetre shorter than he was used to?_ _Check!_ But that wasn’t what made him stop. Granted, he had been eyeing the pants from the beginning of the encounter last night, but at the moment, what they were hiding was more imperative. He pulled at his waistband and glanced inside.

Slightly loose in the front but definitely awesome material used in the making of the dark maroon and black, American brand underwear?

The leer on his face would have killed cold-blooded mercenaries.

_Check!_ His mind pragmatically supplied.

Stepping out of the house after careful consideration, Aomine Daiki was feeling like a brand new man.

He would skip down the side road if he could and it wouldn’t have made his back twinge more than any other physical activity would have given him said pain, but it was already too late to complain about that part, and he was definitely _not_ complaining about what really put the pain in his lower half.

So he resorted to grinning smugly and strutting, because that was what an individual, a man who was banged to the edge of his life and back--with the addition of a brain or not--would do if said banger was Kagami Taiga.

Daiki ceases his movement a few steps away from the apartment complex, though, in sudden contemplation. “Did I…?” He asks aloud.

Frowning, one hand on the hip and the other holding his chin, head tilting this way and that; there’s a twitch in his cheek muscle, a twinge in his back, his feet are expectantly tapping out the wait, wondering why he’s standing around and not moving—they had places they needed to take their owner who had people he needed to brag to. He clicks his tongue, dissatisfied, and runs a tongue over his teeth in—

And as though a light bulb went off on top of his head, Daiki scrambles back the way he came, feet gladly doing the service, lower back not so happy.

"I didn't use his toothbrush!"

 

* * *

 

**Author’s End Note:**

Sigh. Hope it made you laugh…

I might also be missing a few things Aomine could have taken along with him…but!

There’s the part where he’s hoping to drop by later *jiggles eyebrows*

(I don’t know what to do with myself…removing stagnant pieces from my devices…)

Title's a play on "the walk of shame".


End file.
